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THOMAS   Y.    CROWELL   &.  CO.,  Publishers, 
NEW   YORK. 


THE 


Religion  of  a  Gentleman 


BY 

CHARLES    F.   DOLE 

Author  of 

HHE  COMING  PEOPLE,"  "  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  CIVILI- 
ZATION," "  LUXURY  AND  SACRIFICE,"  ETC. 


NEW   YORK 

THOMAS    Y.     CROWELL    &    CO. 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1900, 
BY  THOMAS  y.  CKOWELL  &  COMPANY. 


STACK 
ANNEX 
6V 


To  all  young  men,  to  the  students  in  the 
colleges  of  America,  and  especially  in  Har- 
vard College,  my  own  Alma  Mater,  this  little 
book  is  dedicated,  in  the  earnest  hope  that 
the  thoughts  which  have  brought  intellect- 
ual freedom,  joy,  and  moral  inspiration  to 
its  author  may  carry  similar  help  and  ser- 
vice to  others. 


PREFACE. 


ALMOST  since  I  was  a  boy  it  has  been 
the  wish  of  my  life  that  I  might  be  able 
to  make  the  statement  of  religion  in  such 
a  way  as  to  commend  the  subject  and  make 
it  attractive  to  the  young.  It  has  been  my 
faith  that  religion  must  be  capable  of  the 
most  interesting,  persuasive,  and  reasonable 
treatment.  Religion  did  not,  however,  ap- 
peal to  me  in  this  way  at  first.  On  the 
contrary,  in  my  case,  as  is  no  doubt  true 
with  many  to-day,  the  subject  seemed  some- 
what distant  and  even  repellent.  Religious 
teaching  has  too  often  been  made  to  take 
on  the  hue  of  melancholy  and  even  the 
shadow  of  death.  It  has  seemed  to  threaten 
not  merely  to  deprive  us  of  pleasure  (this 
might  be  borne)  but  also  to  deprive  us  of 
life  and  activity,  and  to  shut  us  up  in  a 
narrow  and  spectral  region. 


vi  PREFACE. 

I  early  found  in  myself  an  instinctive 
hunger  for  life  here  in  this  world;  for  all 
which  this  life  offers;  for  a  large,  normal, 
wholesome,  active,  satisfying  life.  The 
Greek  spirit,  and  not  the  Puritan  only, 
was  in  me.  I  loved  reason,  order,  harmony, 
and  unity.  I  could  not  bear  to  have  to 
make  a  special  plea  for  my  religion,  to 
defend  it,  to  apologize  for  it,  to  entertain 
apprehensions  that  it  might  some  day  be 
overwhelmed  by  shrewd  questions  or  by 
some  new  scientific  or  historical  discovery. 
I  could  not  bear  to  think  of  a  divided 
universe  in  which  science  and  religion  were 
doomed  to  live  apart. 

I  had  been  taught  to  tell  the  truth  and 
obey  the  call  of  duty.  I  could  never  respect 
a  religion  which  offered  men  an  easy  entrance 
to  paradise,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
allowed  them  to  live  in  falsehood,  self-indul- 
gence, and  selfishness.  The  words  of  an 
ancient  teaching  had  settled  deep  into  my 
mind :  Ye  shall  judge  them  by  their  fruits. 
It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  the  fruits  of 


PREFACE.  Vll 

the  customary  religion,  as  set  forth  in  the 
churches  of  Christendom,  were  as  yet  re- 
spectable. 

I  looked  out  on  a  world  of  sectarian  divi- 
sions. I  had  been  used  in  early  childhood 
to  hear  judgments  passed  which  condemned 
multitudes  to  endless  suffering,  which  con- 
demned noble  and  high-minded  men  for  an 
error  of  opinion,  which  ruled  out  of  the 
communion  of  the  church  some  of  the  best 
and  sweetest  friends  whom  I  knew,  because 
they  could  not  honestly  take  on  their  lips 
certain  conventional  words  or  phrases.  The 
true  church,  I  was  bound  to  believe,  must 
open  its  doors  wide  enough  to  take  in  all 
sincere  and  genuine  souls.  It  must  be  a 
church  for  all  humanity.  Where  was  the 
church  which  set  a  premium  upon  honesty, 
which  practised  thorough-going  hospitality  ? 

On  the  one  hand  I  was  overwhelmed  with 
an  ineradicable  conviction  that  religion  is 
the  most  profound  of  all  human  interests, 
which  no  intelligent  being  can  afford  to  rule 
out  of  his  thoughts.  I  was  drawn  to  it 


Viii  PREFACE. 

accordingly,  as  if  by  a  sort  of  universal 
gravitation.  On  the  other  hand,  like  one 
who  sees  objects  in  a  fog,  I  dreaded  religion 
as  a  disturbing  spectre,  threatening  to  make 
me  something  other  than  my  real  self,  and 
menacing  my  identity. 

It  became  necessary  both  for  my  mental 
sanity  and  my  peace  of  mind  to  reconstruct 
my  religion.  The  love  of  reality,  the  sense 
of  an  ethical  imperative,  and  a  faith  in  right- 
eousness immanent  in  human  life,  regnant 
throughout  the  universe,  guided  my  path- 
way. The  impressive  volume  and  variety 
of  the  records  of  human  experience  con- 
tributed aid  and  comfort.  In  some  aspects 
the  religion  to  which  I  have  worked  my 
way  seems  new  and  fresh,  as  well  as  ex- 
tremely interesting  and  inspiring.  In  other 
aspects  it  is  as  old  as  the  soul  of  man. 
There  is  no  great  doctrine  which  the  great 
teachers  have  enunciated  which  does  not 
prove  to  enter  into  it,  and  even  to  be 
essential  to  it.  I  seem  to  hold  the  key  to 
interpret  their  noblest  thought.  But  their 


PREFACE.  IX 

teachings  come  to  us  illuminated  by  the 
wonderful  facts  of  modern  science  and 
reenforced  by  the  modern  study  of  history. 
If  I  once  dreaded  lest  religion  should  com- 
pel me  to  act  against  my  nature,  lest  it 
should  destroy  vital  instincts,  cut  down  the 
joy  of  life,  and  restrict  my  sympathies 
and  interests,  I  now  love  my  religion  be- 
cause it  offers  fullness  of  life. 

It  must  be  that  young  minds  are  con- 
stantly obliged  to  pass  through  something 
like  the  same  transition  which  I  have  de- 
scribed, from  the  traditional  religion  of  their 
childhood,  accepted  simply  upon  authority, 
to  the  freely  chosen  religion  of  maturity.  I 
should  be  very  glad  if  my  experience  might 
serve  to  make  their  path  more  plain. 

It  is  possible  that  some  readers  will  not 
care  for  Chapter  III.  I  have  attempted  to 
make  the  course  of  my  reasoning  as  simple 
as  possible.  But  if  any  so  prefer  I  am 
quite  willing  that  they  should  pass  on  to 
the  next  chapter.  Perhaps  later  they  will 
choose  to  turn  back  and  will  not  then  find 


X  PREFACE. 

this  chapter  too  difficult.  It  is  a  pity  not 
to  know  something  of  the  foundation  of 
thought  upon  which  a  valid  religion  must 
rest. 

It  may  be  said  by  some  that  I  am  too 
confident  in  the  tone  of  my  optimism.  I 
answer  that  it  is  my  religion  which  com- 
pels me  to  optimism.  Moreover,  I  am  not 
writing  for  jaded  and  somewhat  sophisti- 
cated readers,  through  the  veil  of  whose 
habitual  cynicism  I  must  warily  pass  before 
I  can  hope  to  hold  sincere  speech  with  them. 
I  am  writing  with  the  desire  of  interest- 
ing the  young,  and  especially  that  class 
of  youth,  generous,  intelligent,  and  ener- 
getic, who  are  destined  to  be  the  leaders 
of  their  generation,  and  whose  characteristic 
qualities,  therefore,  make  them  naturally 
hopeful  and  buoyant.  I  am  writing  for 
those  who  possess  health  and  life  and  the 
capacity  for  enthusiasm.  I  conceive  it  to 
be  my  business  to  tell  honestly  what  the 
checkered  experiences  of  the  world  have 
taught  me.  My  lesson  is  not  doubt,  but 


PREFACE.  XI 

confidence ;  it  is  not  suspicion,  but  friend- 
liness and  hope. 

I  have  not,  however,  ruled  out  the  facts 
which  sometimes  drive  men  to  doubt  and 
despair.  I  have  had  to  face  them  early 
and  often.  I  have  endeavored  to  suggest 
many  times  in  these  pages,  and  particularly 
in  the  later  chapters,  the  great  and  weighty 
considerations  which  more  and  more  satisfy 
my  mind  as  a  clew  and  guide  in  meeting 
the  perplexing  problems  of  human  exist- 
ence. If  any  readers  care  to  pursue  these 
questions  further,  I  have  tried  in  The 
Theology  of  Civilization  to  outline  more 
fully  the  profound  philosophy  which  under- 
lies this  little  book.  It  is  a  philosophy 
in  which  I  am  happy  to  find  myself  in 
substantial  accord  with  many  of  the  most 
progressive,  earnest,  and  cultivated  minds 
of  this  generation,  as  well  as  with  some 
of  the  greatest  leaders  of  thought  in  the 
past.  In  fact  we  are  ready  to-day  to  com- 
bine the  best  results  of  ancient  and  oriental 
thinking  with  the  more  active  and  practi- 


xii  PREFACE. 

cal  workings  of  the  western  and  modern 
mind. 

I  have  made  free  and  frequent  use  of 
the  familiar  Christian  ideas  and  traditions. 
A  few  readers  may  question  whether  I 
have  not  over-emphasized  the  importance  of 
Jesus'  story  and  teachings ;  others  may  pos- 
sibly complain  that  I  have  used  this  material 
too  unconventionally.  I  have  simply  used 
it  because  on  the  whole  it  has  suited  my 
purpose.  Whatever  one's  theory  about  the 
life  of  Jesus  may  be,  the  fact  remains  that 
no  life  better  illustrates  the  mystery  and 
the  divineness  of  human  personality ;  the 
story  of  no  other  life  is  so  familiar  to 
multitudes  of  men  f  no  life  therefore  serves 
more  effectually  to  set  forth  the  grand 
ethical  and  spiritual  ends  for  which  we  all 
live. 

Moreover  Jesus  went  to  his  brave  death 
while  he  was  still  a  young  man.  His 
appeal  to  the  chivalrous  spirit  of  youth  has 
always,  therefore,  been  peculiarly  strong 
and  effective.  We  ought  to  be  able  by 


i 
PREFACE.  Xlii 

this  time  to  perceive  that  this  appeal  is 
not  to  mere  idle,  meaningless,  unpractical 
sacrifice,  but  rather  to  the  largest  and  most 
effectual  use  of  life. 

There  is  danger  in  the  story  of  Jesus 
if  men  only  worship  him  as  a  God.  There 
is  no  danger  to  those  who  find  in  his  story 
the  everlasting  law  of  truth,  duty,  and  love, 
who  thenceforth  march  on  to  obey  this 
threefold  law,  which  binds  all  spiritual  in- 
telligences in  the  universe.  I  have  taken 
the  utmost  pains  everywhere  to  show  that 
whatever  element  of  character  contributed 
to  make  Jesus'  life  beautiful  or  worthy  of 
reverence  must  be  equally  beautiful  and 
worshipful,  wherever  it  is  seen,  in  modern 
as  well  as  in  ancient  times.  Jesus  is  the 
great  democrat  and  liberator.  God  forbid 
that  his  name  be  made  the  means  of  any 
intellectual  or  spiritual  tyranny.  No  one 
understands  his  life  or  his  place  in  history 
who  has  not  learned  to  recognize  and  to  love 
the  good  men  and  women  of  our  own  time  — 
the  loving  and  lovable,  the  honest  and 


xiv  PREFACE. 

truthful  souls  who  dwell  in  our  own  streets. 
I  have  used  the  name  of  Jesus  on  purpose 
to  link  together  the  noble  lives  of  the  new 
age  with  all  the  old  masters.  There  can  be 
no  inspiring  religion  which  does  not  teach 
the  profound  doctrine  of  the  incarnation 
of  the  present  and  living  God  in  human 
form.  The  universal  religion  which  man 
seeks  to-day  demands  a  universal  incarna- 
tion. It  aims  to  lift  all  humanity  to  the 
level  of  the  sons  of  God. 

There  was  never  such  a  call  as  now 
for  the  right  kind  of  leadership.  The  old 
leadership  was  in  the  art  of  war,  in  Machi- 
avellian state  craft,  and  in  rival  empires. 
The  age  of  such  leadership  is  passing  away. 
In  science  and  inventions,  in  the  exploita- 
tion of  material  resources,  in  trades  and  in- 
dustries, in  the  application  of  the  forces  of 
nature,  the  Nineteenth  Century  has  raised 
up  its  able  and  chosen  leaders  —  the  peers  of 
the  old-time  warriors  and  princes.  It  was 
the  great  century  for  engineers  and  chem- 
ists, for  the  builders  of  railways  and  facto- 


PREFACE.  XV 

ries.  But  there  is  a  higher  kind  of  leader- 
ship than  that  which  organizes  physical 
force  and  distributes  material.  Through  all 
times  the  highest  of  all  leadership  has  re- 
mained the  same ;  it  has  been  in  the  realm 
of  art,  and  thought,  in  disinterestedness  and 
humanity.  The  names  of  emperors  have 
faded;  the  names  of  the  lovers  and  helpers 
of  men  have  remained  bright. 

The  new  need  is  for  this  eternal  form 
of  leadership.  It  is  in  the  development 
and  application  of  moral  and  spiritual 
forces.  The  dull  world  still  waits  to  be 
rightly  educated.  Not  Spain  and  Cuba  only, 
but  England  and  the  United  States  wait 
for  high-minded  and  clear-sighted  teachers. 
The  world  waits  for  those  who  shall  win 
for  it  industrial  and  social  freedom.  Men 
have  fought  and  competed  long  enough. 
Who  will  wisely  show  them  how  to  cooper- 
ate ?  The  world  cries  earnestly  for  those 
who  shall  show  it  how  to  use  and  enjoy  its 
wealth.  It  waits  for  the  great  leaders  who 
shall  cleanse  away  its  vile  slums  and  re- 


XVi  PREFACE. 

create  its  cities  in  beauty.  It  waits  for 
mighty  statesmen  who  shall  bind  the  jealous 
nations  into  a  commonwealth  of  mankind. 
It  longs  for  those  who  shall  teach  it  the 
secret  of  happiness.  It  is  growing  tired  of 
coarse,  gross,  selfish,  partial  material  forms 
of  civilization.  It  waits  for  real  and  com- 
plete civilization ;  it  waits  for  leaders  who 
shall  embody  in  art,  in  literature,  in  institu- 
tions, in  industry,  in  business,  throughout 
all  human  society  the  beautiful  and  com- 
manding law  of  love. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER.  PAGE. 

I.  WHO  is  THE  GENTLEMAN  ?     .     .     .     .  1 

II.  A  CIVILIZED  RELIGION 17 

III.  A  BIT  OF  ARGUMENT 30 

IV.  SPIRIT  —  WHAT  IT  is 46 

V.  WHAT  IT  is  TO  LOVE  GOD    ....  61 

VI.  PRAYER  AND  REASON 80 

VII.  WHAT  FREEDOM  is 98 

VIII.  WHAT  IT  is  TO  BE  GOOD       ....  116 

IX.  THE  GREAT  RENUNCIATION    ....  134 

X.  THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE 148 

XI.  A  PRACTICAL  QUESTION 166 

XII.  WHAT  is  THE  USE  ? 183 

XIII.  MEMENTO  MORI 197 

XIV.  OUR  RULE  OF  LIFE 215 

xvii 


THE 
RELIGION   OF  A  GENTLEMAN. 

CHAPTER  I. 

WHO  IS   THE   GENTLEMAN? 

WHO  has  not  pictures  in  his  mind  of  the 
old-world  gentleman  ?  He  wears  the  dress 
of  a  distinct  class ;  he  is  probably  mounted 
upon  a  horse,  carries  a  sword,  and  is 
attended  by  a  servant ;  common  people  do 
reverence  to  him  as  he  passes.  He  believes 
—  and  others  also  believe  —  that  his  family 
is  of  finer  clay  than  the  ordinary  sort. 
The  women  of  his  order  are  ladies,  entitled, 
therefore,  to  a  regard  quite  above  women 
in  general. 

Are  we  right  in  using  the  words  "  gentle- 
man "  and  "  lady  "  in  America  ?  Are  they 
not  indeed  survivals  of  an  aristocratic  social 


2       THE  RELIGION  OF  A   GENTLEMAN. 

and  political  system  which  we  in  the  United 
States  have  renounced?  The  very  words 
have  too  often  become  degraded  in  snobbish 
use  to  imply  less  humanity  than  their  simple 
and  humbler  cousins  man  and  woman.  If  in 
a  democracy  one  man  is  as  good  as  another, 
and  every  one  is  to  be  treated  as  a  gentle- 
man by  virtue  of  his  human  birth,  why 
should  we  not  discard  meaningless  terms, 
which  seem,  so  far  as  they  are  seriously 
used,  to  deny  the  principles  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  ? 

Nevertheless,  there  are  real  differences 
and  distinctions  even  in  a  democracy.  No 
one  believes  that  all  men  are  equal  in  worth. 
What  good  Democrat  of  our  forefathers' 
time  would  have  been  bold  enough  to  assert 
that  he  was  himself  half  as  important  to  the 
nation  as  "Washington,  or  Madison,  or 
Jefferson  ?  You  would  easily  have  found  a 
thousand  men  willing  to  die  together,  if 
their  death  could  have  saved  the  one  life  of 
Lincoln.  There  are  men  serving  to-day  — 
jurists,  statesmen,  teachers,  ministers,  cap- 


WHO  IS   THE  GENTLEMAN?  3 

tains  of  industry,  poets  —  with  whom  very 
few  of  their  contemporaries  would  be  con- 
ceited enough  to  claim  equality.  When 
young  Sherman  Hoar  died  it  was  as  if  a 
tall  tree  had  fallen  in  the  forest.  Whatever 
truth  we  wish  to  convey  in  our  Declaration 
of  Independence  (and  there  is  a  great  truth 
concealed  in  its  ringing  words)  we  certainly 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  one  man  is  as  good 
or  important  or  valuable  as  another.  No 
one  believes  this.  The  real  differences  be- 
tween men  in  fact  are  probably  far  more 
and  not  less  than  the  common  estimation  of 
values. 

I  purpose  to  make  a  plea  for  the  continued 
use  of  the  word  "  gentleman."  I  wish  to 
show  that  it  describes  a  type  of  manhood 
that  is  still  rare  in  the  world.  It  is  a  type 
without  the  existence  and  clear  recognition 
of  which  our  splendid  experiment  of  democ- 
racy would  fail.  It  is,  indeed,  a  type  of 
character,  for  the  production  of  which  I  hold 
that  our  democratic  institutions  have  their 
chief  use  and  significance.  I  am  not  satis- 


4       THE  RELIGION   OF  A   GENTLEMAN. 

fied  with  saying  that  our  government  is  a 
means  for  securing  "  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness."  The  ideal  end  which 
we  pursue  is  a  certain  superior  form  of  hap- 
piness. It  is  not  the  happiness  which  might 
content  savage  men  ;  it  is  the  peculiar  kind 
of  happiness  which  belongs  to  those  who 
have  become  ladies  and  gentlemen. 

We  are  bound,  however,  if  we  go  on  using 
these  old  words,  with  their  aristocratic  flavor 
about  them,  at  once  to  make  it  plain  that 
we  use  them  as  good  democrats.  We  must 
commend  them  even  to  those  who  can 
hardly  yet  rightly  claim  to  be  ladies  or  gen- 
tlemen themselves.  I  am  confident  that  we 
can  not  only  justify  this  frank  use  of  a  true 
class  distinction  in  the  republic,  but  that  we 
are  making  this  distinction  for  the  welfare 
of  all. 

We  must  first  be  sure  to  discard  certain 
tenacious  prejudices  that  even  in  the  old 
times  obscured  the  ideal  of  a  gentleman. 
There  were  childish  people,  for  example, 
who  always  judged  a  man  by  the  clothes  that 


WHO  IS   THE  GENTLEMAN?  5 

he  wore.  They  associated  a  certain  style  of 
dress  with  the  gentleman,  as  distinguished 
from  the  peasant  or  workman.  We  are 
used  in  America  to  finding  gentlemen  in 
overalls,  working  in  shops,  driving  wagons 
or  ploughs,  running  locomotives,  or  stand- 
ing at  the  helm  on  shipboard.  We  may 
know  real  ladies  who  take  in  washing. 
Our  aristocrats  show  their  good  sense  in 
wearing  whatever  befits  their  work.  Bring 
the  prince  out  of  his  disguise,  and  all  men 
will  recognize  him. 

It  can  hardly  need  to  be  said  that  the 
possession  of  money  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  real  character  of  the  gentleman.  Who 
really  thinks  this  in  our  modern  world? 
What  if  a  man  has  made  his  millions,  and 
lives  in  a  palace  and  runs  a  steam  yacht? 
Let  him  be  coarse  in  his  tastes,  overbearing 
in  his  manners,  tyrannical  to  his  workmen, 
and  we  hear  the  world  presently  say :  "  Yes ! 
he  is  rich,  but  he  is  no  gentleman."  As 
for  women,  no  amount  of  furniture,  osten- 
tation, or  glitter  of  jewels  will  cover  the 


6       THE  RELIGION   OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

subtle  distinction  between  the  sham  and  the 
real  lady. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  money 
has  something  to  do  with  the  making  of  the 
gentleman.  What  if  the  child,  born  in  the 
slums  of  a  city,  must  go  to  work  in  a  shop, 
while  the  more  favored  lad  just  around  the 
corner  is  sent  to  the  best  schools  on  his  way 
to  the  university  ?  What  if  a  boy  has  never 
even  been  introduced  to  the  stories  of  the 
heroes,  or  has  never  seen  a  better  man  than  the 
nearest  saloon  keeper?  There  is  a  poverty, 
let  us  own,  sometimes  in  the  heart  of  great 
cities,  sometimes  on  the  prairies,  or  again  in 
the  New  England  hill  towns,  so  meagre  that 
its  victims  do  not  know  what  the  life  of  a 
true  gentleman  is.  The  republic  has  failed 
of  its  task  if  boys  grow  up  in  it  practically 
cut  off  from  the  chances  to  become  gentle- 
men. 

Can  we  admit  that  a  man's  birth  or  family 
has  anything  whatever  to  do  in  conferring 
our  new  and  democratic  title  of  gentleman  ? 
Let  us  not  be  too  hasty  here  in  answering 


WHO  IS   THE  GENTLEMAN?  7 

"  No."  Is  it  not  of  real  value  to  a  child  to 
bear  a  family  name,  distinguished  for  a  num- 
ber of  generations,  —  we  will  not  say  for 
mere  wealth,  but  for  refinement,  education, 
sturdy  character,  and  public  spirit?  Who 
would  not  be  at  least  slightly  pleased  if  he 
knew  that  his  forefathers  had  fought  or 
suffered  on  the  side  of  early  English  liberty, 
or  with  William  of  Orange  in  Holland ;  that 
some  of  them  had  been  friends  of  Washing- 
ton; that  their  fellow-citizens  had  always 
trusted  them,  as  the  people  of  Delaware 
trusted  the  Bayards  ?  If  a  man  happens  to 
be  mean,  small,  and  egotistic  this  kind  of 
family  inheritance  may  make  him  rather 
ridiculous,  but  it  is  a  constant  call  and 
demand  upon  a  man  not  to  be  small  and 
mean.  So  far,  then,  from  wishing  to  cut 
boys  off  from  noble  and  truly  gentlemanly 
family  traditions,  we  would  like  to  see  -all 
children  reared  in  such  traditions.  We 
would  like  if  possible  to  have  every  child 
able  to  say  :  "  My  father  was  a  gentleman." 
We  ought'  now  to  see  at  once  what  the 


8       THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

essential  qualities  are  which  in  every  age 
have  conferred  the  rank  of  gentleman.  It 
was  not  for  nothing  that  the  old-world  gen- 
tleman was  represented  as  a  horseman  or 
chevalier.  Why  did  the  one  man  ride,  while 
the  thousand  went  afoot?  At  the  worst, 
because  he  was  idle,  and  selfish,  perhaps  a 
robber  of  other  men's  industry.  But  so  far 
as  this  was  so,  he  was  a  false  knight.  At  his 
best  he  was  a  helper  and  defender.  His 
proper  business  was  to  protect  the  poor.  He 
was  supposed  to  be  a  sort  of  public  servant. 
This  was  the  only  excuse  for  his  existence 
as  a  rider,  while  others  went  on  foot.  We 
are  coming  out  of  the  anomalous  mediaeval 
barbarism  into  a  period  of  industrial  develop- 
ment. We  do  not  need  hard  riders  and  fighters. 
But  we  need  more  than  ever  (and  not  merely 
one  in  a  thousand)  men  who  love  the  people, 
committed  to  the  public  good,  helpers  and 
defenders  of  the  interests  of  mankind.  Shall 
we  not  agree  in  saying  that  in  the  modern 
and  democratic  sense  of  the  word  the  gentle- 
man is  a  man  of  generosity,  of  a  social  con- 


WHO  IS   THE  GENTLEMAN?  9 

science,  of  disinterestedness  and  of  public 
spirit. 

Burke  is  quoted  as  saying  that  "our 
civilization  for  ages  has  depended  upon  two 
principles  —  the  spirit  of  religion  and  the 
spirit  of  a  gentleman."  He  means  precisely 
what  we  have  been  saying;  namely,  that  all 
human  advancement  depends  upon  at  least 
a  certain  healthy  proportion  in  each  genera- 
tion of  those  who  are  devoted  to  the  public 
good.  There  is  no  doubt  that  our  great  re- 
public in  this  second  century  of  its  life,  and 
under  the  enormous  responsibilities  for  the 
world  that  it  carries,  demands  a  vastly  in- 
creased supply  of  men  and  women  of  this 
type. 

A  second  great  and  characteristic  mark  of 
the  gentleman  always  has  been  that  he  is  a 
man  of  the  world.  The  phrase  has  a  bad 
sense  describing  one  who  "  at  Rome  does  as 
the  Romans  do."  In  other  words,  when  he 
goes  among  barbarians  he  puts  on  their  war- 
paint and  drops  to  the  barbarous  life.  We 
use  the  phrase  now  in  its  better  sense.  The 


10    THE  EELIGION  OF  A   GENTLEMAN. 

true  "  man  of  the  world  "  is  a  citizen  of  the 
universe ;  he  is  a  man  of  cosmopolitan  sym- 
pathies ;  wherever  he  goes  he  is  master,  not 
servant,  of  the  situation,  being  able  to  adjust 
himself  to  circumstances  and  to  make  him- 
self at  home.  If  he  lives  with  savages  he  is 
still  the  gentleman,  their  friend  to  help  them, 
their  defender  to  lead  them,  never  a  par- 
taker of  their  vices.  Thus  Livingstone  and 
Stanley  traversed  the  dark  continent  in  the 
spirit  of  gentlemen.  Thus  Francis  Parkman 
studied  the  problems  of  our  native  Indian 
life,  none  the  less  a  gentleman,  though  sick 
almost  to  death  in  the  squalid  savage 


We  in  America  aim  at  this  world-citizen- 
ship. Whatever  happens  anywhere  interests 
us.  Whatever  is  human  is  ours.  Men  of 
many  races  come  to  our  shores,  and  we 
assimilate  them  as  countrymen.  We  are 
preeminently  a  nation  of  travellers  ;  we 
spend  more  than  a  hundred  millions  a  year 
in  visiting  other  peoples.  Every  journey 
abroad  weaves  another  thread  into  the  net- 


WHO  IS   THE  GENTLEMAN  f  11 

work  of  international  and  cosmopolitan 
fellow-feeling.  Nowhere  are  the  desire  and 
demand  so  strong  as  in  the  United  States 
for  a  grand  system  of  arbitration  to  ensure 
peace  and  good  will  in  the  world.  It  is  the 
working  of  Burke's  "  spirit  of  the  gentle- 
man," the  civilized  man,  the  citizen  of  the 
universe. 

It  is  a  fine  art  to  attain  our  modern  ideal 
of  a  true  man  of  the  world.  It  is  an  educa- 
tion not  merely  of  books,  but  of  all  kinds  of 
life  experiences.  The  typical  American  is 
learning  every  day  to  get  on  with  "  all  kinds 
and  conditions  of  men."  To  be  civilized 
means  essentially  to  be  able  to  live  in  humane 
relations  with  other  men,  to  be  patient  with 
their  faults  and  limitations,  to  sympathize 
with  their  disadvantages  or  misfortunes,  to 
understand  their  diverse  forms  of  thought 
or  opinion,  to  discover  whatever  manly 
worth  is  in  them,  to  be  ready  to  cooperate 
with  them,  to  get  their  best  work  out  of 
them,  to  promote  their  highest  industrial, 
social,  and  political  efficiency.  It  is  not 


12    THE  RELIGION  OF  A   GENTLEMAN. 

necessary  that  a  man  should  be  an  official, 
an  army  officer,  a  head  of  a  department  in 
the  civil  service,  the  mayor  of  a  city,  in 
order  to  do  this  work  of  a  civilized  and  civ- 
ilizing man.  It  is  the  work  of  the  gentle- 
man, in  whatever  estate  he  lives.  The  best 
type  of  farmer  is  doing  it ;  the  thorough  and 
skilful  foreman  or  factory  superintendent 
does  it.  Yes  !  The  common  laborer  who  has 
once  entered  into  the  conception  of  what 
human  labor  means  does  the  same  thing. 
He  is  no  longer  a  mere  mechanical  cog  in  a 
wheel ;  he  is  a  willing,  friendly,  vital  mem- 
ber of  the  great  body  of  human  and  con- 
structive activity. 

There  is  nothing,  so  interesting  and  refin- 
ing as  this  continuous  process  of  nice  adjust- 
ment, by  which  we  all  learn  to  live  the  life  of 
civilized  men.  Does  a  man's  manhood  seem 
to  be  menaced  by  the  narrow  routine  of  his 
task  —  setting  type,  reading  proof,  polishing 
the  head  of  a  pin  ?  But  here  is  the  moral, 
social,  spiritual  side  of  his  life,  upon  which 
he  has  to  touch  other  lives,  for  better,  for 


WHO  IS   THE  GENTLEMAN?  13 

worse.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  development 
of  the  gentlemanly  instincts  and  ladylike 
instincts  on  this  higher  side.  Did  not  the 
famous  Spinoza  earn  his  scanty  living  by 
polishing  lenses?  Did  not  the  excellent 
Lucy  Larcom  tend  a  loom  in  a  Lowell  mill  ? 

Some  one  may  think  that  we  ought  before 
this  to  have  spoken  of  the  characteristic 
manners  of  the  gentleman.  But  fine  man- 
ners are  not  like  a  mask  or  garb  that  can  be 
put  on  and  off ;  they  are  the  expression  of  a 
spirit  or  character.  They  are  the  delicate 
response  of  a  kindly  nature  to  the  pres- 
ence of  other  men.  They  are  partly  conven- 
tional, inasmuch  as  they  represent  a  sort  of 
universal  human  experience,  wherein  kindly 
men  have  learned  to  show  friendliness  and 
due  respect  to  one  another.  The  manners 
of  Pekin  may  differ  from  the  conventions  at 
Chicago  or  London,  but  the  true  man  of  the 
world,  that  is,  the  man  of  wide  human  sym- 
pathy, is  easily  at  home  in  Pekin  or  Yoko- 
hama or  London. 

Young  girls  come  up  from  the  country  to 


14    THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

visit  friends  in  the  metropolis.  Do  they 
bring  intelligence  and  kind  hearts?  They 
are  never  long  at  a  loss  how  to  behave  in  any 
society.  We  have  seen  men  born  with  the 
degrading  heritage  of  slavery,  who  have 
taken  place  with  the  first  gentlemen  of  the 
land ;  whereas  at  the  advent  of  selfishness 
the  spirit  of  the  gentleman  doubtless  goes 
out  of  the  most  carefully  selected  family 
stock.  With  every  outburst  of  selfishness, 
arrogance,  or  conceit,  with  every  subtle 
thought  of  self-conscious  pride,  the  gentle- 
man disappears.  With  every  high-minded 
impulse,  with  every  noble  or  patriotic  re- 
solve, with  every  act  or  word  for  the  public 
weal,  with  all  quickening  sympathies,  the 
gentleman  comes  back  to  life.  His  manners 
express  himself.  Jesus  was  born  among  the 
people.  Does  any  one  doubt  that  he  knew 
how  to  behave  with  manly  dignity  in  the 
chief  Pharisees'  houses? 

There  is  a  difference  between  the  old  and 
our  new  use  of  the  word  "  gentleman."  In 
the  old  days  it  was  a  title  that  a  man  as- 


WHO   IS    THE  GENTLEMAN?  15 

sumed  for  himself ;  he  claimed  the  rank  as 
of  right ;  it  was  a  title  by  which  he  liked  to 
compare  himself  with  others  as  a  superior 
being.  This  practice  unfortunately  still 
survives.  We  use  the  same  title  on  the 
contrary  as  an  ideal ;  we  do  not  claim  it,  as 
we  would  not  claim  to  be  called  "  good." 
It  is  what  we  wish  to  be ;  namely,  noble, 
dignified,  generous,  in  the  list  of  the  bene- 
factors. We  like  to  find  those  to  whom  we 
can  heartily  apply  the  word  to  describe 
them.  We  rejoice  in  the  youth  whom 
we  see  pressing  into  this  rank.  If  others 
could  ever  honestly  say  of  us  "  He  is  a 
gentleman,"  we  should  be  grateful.  In  fact, 
the  higher  our  ideal  of  the  true  use  of  the 
name,  the  less  do  we  venture  to  press  our 
right  to  it. 

We  may,  perhaps,  see  now  what  the 
secret  is  of  the  truth  that  our  fathers  stated 
in  the  words  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. We  have  seen  that  they  could 
not  mean  that  every  man  is  equally  gifted 
with  strength,  intellect,  genius,  or  life.  But 


16    THE  RELIGION   OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

they  discerned  the  deeper  fact,  that  it  is  in 
every  man,  if  he  wishes,  to  be  a  gentleman. 
They  affirmed  that  there  is  no  difference  of 
clay  that  raises  one  family,  color,  or  race  as 
masters,  while  the  rest  must  serve ;  that 
makes  a  few  noble  and  the  others  oiily 


Our  national  experience  goes  far  already 
to  make  just  this  splendid  declaration.  The 
peer  of  Washington  comes  out  of  the  poverty 
of  a  backwoodsman's  cabin.  Out  of  a  cease- 
less line  of  new  emigrants  the  nation  is 
always  recruiting  its  merchants,  its  states- 
men, its  masters  of  industry,  its  inventors, 
and  its  educators.  Where  can  you  draw  the 
line  and  deny  the.  democratic  right  of  the 
humblest  to  press  into  the  list  of  this  peer- 
age? Who  loves  man,  who  serves  man, 
whose  sympathies  over-arch  the  world,  —  he 
is  our  gentleman.  For  what  else  do  all  our 
institutions  exist,  unless  to  rear  and  foster 
men  and  women  of  this  sort  ? 


A    CIVILIZED  RELIGION.  17 


CHAPTER  II. 

A  CIVILIZED  RELIGION. 

LET  us  imagine  the  best  type  of  man, 
thoroughly  equipped  for  modern  life.  He 
has  a  rich  and  harmonious  nature ;  he  is 
frank,  truthful,  friendly,  high-minded,  cour- 
teous, of  manly  dignity,  modest  withal,  with 
noble  aims.  He  has  enjoyed  a  broad  and 
thorough  education,  he  has  travelled  enough, 
or  seen  enough  of  life  to  have  learned  to  make 
himself  at  home  among  poor  men  and  rich 
alike,  to  use  "  things,"  but  not  to  become  their 
slave ;  to  appreciate  the  value  and  impor- 
tance of  the  various  kinds  of  work,  from  the 
humblest  to  the  most  exalted,  by  which  hu- 
man society  goes  on.  He  is  the  kind  of  man 
any  one  of  us  would  like  to  be,  the  ideal  that 
a  girl  might  choose  for  her  lover,  that  a  mother 
would  propose  for  her  sons.  Here  he  stands 
at  the  threshold  of  life.  Will  such  a  com- 


18      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

plete  man  of  the  world,  so  broadly  educated, 
have  any  religion  in  these  modern  times  ? 

It  is  interesting  to  observe,  as  we  trace  the 
historical  development  of  the  idea  of  the 
gentleman,  that  the  best  specimens  of  the 
"  old  school  "  were  decidedly  religious  men. 
Spenser  and  Milton  and  Sidney  are  examples. 
They  were  men  of  conscience,  honor,  and 
loyalty.  They  held  themselves  to  belong  to 
a  constituted  order  of  righteousness,  which 
they  could  not  escape,  which  they  had  no 
wish  to  evade.  They  lived  not  merely  in  a 
world  of  fleeting  phenomena,  but  also  in 
the  more  solid  and  enduring  realm  of  laws, 
principles,  and  ideals.  To  their  thought  right, 
truth,  duty  were  not  in  this  earth  alone ; 
they  were  in  the  heavens  and  eternal.  Show 
the  true  gentleman  then  what  duty  bade  and 
he  must  do  it,  cost  what  it  might.  All  that 
he  had,  all  that  he  possessed  he  held  in  trust 
for  his  king,  for  his  country,  for  his  religion, 
for  his  God.  When  did  ever  the  gentleman 
draw  the  prudent  line,  and  count  the  cost, 
and  prescribe,  "  Thus  far  and  no  farther,"  to 


A    CIVILIZED   RELIGION.  19 

his  fidelity?  What  gentleman  ever  had  his 
price  at  which  his  soul  could  be  bought  for 
honors,  titles,  lands,  or  gold  ? 

We  are  not  claiming  that   this  old-fash- 
ioned  religion   was  carefully   thought  out. 
We  are  not  stating  in  what  form  it  expressed 
itself.     It  existed  in  different   creeds.     Sir 
Thomas  More,   the  Catholic,  was  as  ready 
to  die  for  it  as  Admiral  Coligny,  the  Hu- 
guenot.    Saladin  is  as  true  a  type  of  it,  in 
Lessing's  "  Nathan  the  Wise,"  as  the  Jew  or 
the  Christian.     Each  in  his  own  way  held  a 
faith  that  at  the  worst,  as  Lowell  says : 
"  Within  the  dim  unknown, 
Sitteth  God  behind  the  shadow, 
Keeping  watch  above  his  own." 

We  start  at  once  with  a  strong  presump- 
tion that  religion  somehow  goes  to  the 
making  of  a  gentleman.  If  the  spirit  of 
religion,  as  Burke  says,  has  been  a  part  of 
civilization,  this  was  because  religion  made 
a  part  of  the  life  of  the  leaders  of  civiliza- 
tion, that  is,  the  most  civilized  men.  No 
one  surely  would  wish  to  be  obliged  to  try 


20      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

the  experiment  of  a  type  of  civilization  in 
which  this  profound  element,  which  has 
always  run  through  the  past  like  a  golden 
thread,  should  be  quite  cast  out  from  the 
lives  of  the  leaders  of  the  world.  Is  there 
then  any  kind  of  religion  which  we  may 
agree  would  befit  our  highest  type  of  man  ? 
What  kind  of  religion  would  he  like,  if  relig- 
ions could  be  made  to  order?  Let  us  see 
if  he  would  ask  anything  inherently  un- 
reasonable or  self-contradictory. 

In  the  first  place,  our  best  type  of  man 
would  wish  his  religion  to  grow  out  of,  and 
not  to  be  alien  to,  the  nobler  forms  of  the 
religion  of  the  past.  He  would  not  wish  to 
be  compelled  to  break  with  all  the  traditions 
of  earlier  men ;  he  would  not  like  to  be 
obliged  to  brand  the  faith  of  his  fathers  as 
altogether  false  ;  he  would  not  wish  to  make 
light  of  his  mother's  prayers.  Brought  up 
a  Christian,  he  would  not  wish  to  become 
unchristian.  Brought  up  a  Jew,  he  would 
never  be  quite  happy  to  renounce  his  Juda- 
ism. Born  a  Buddhist  or  a  Confucian,  he 


A    CIVILIZED   RELIGION.  21 

would  wish  never  to  turn  his  back  upon 
the  teachings  of  the  saints  of  his  national 
religion. 

Again,  as  a  true  man  of  the  world,  the 
gentleman  would  wish  a  religion  that  offered 
him  a  large  fellowship  with  men  in  other 
churches  and  even  with  men  of  other  gener- 
ations. He  could  hardly  be  content  with  a 
religion  that  cut  him  off  from  sympathy 
with  any  of  the  best  men  of  his  time. 
Much  less  could  he  be  content  with  a  relig- 
ion that  declared  all  other  religions  to  be 
wrong  and  false  and  their  followers  to  be 
without  hope.  How  can  a  man  of  hu- 
manity, who  has  read  history,  who,  in 
actual  journeys  or  by  the  flight  of  his  im- 
agination, has  visited  different  lands,  seen 
the  world's  great  historic  temples  and 
churches,  and  known  many  men  of  many 
minds, — how  can  such  a  man  help  wish- 
ing to  understand  the  common  elements 
and  aspirations  that  show  themselves  in  all 
the  great  religions  under  which  men  have 
attained  any  degree  of  real  civilization  ? 


22      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Such  a  man  must  desire  a  religion  that 
shall  interpret  all  the  faiths  of  the  world, 
and  give  him  initiation  into  their  sacred 
mysteries. 

Thirdly,  the  best  demand  of  our  time  is 
for  a  very  simple  religion.  Tell  us,  earnest 
men  ask,  what  are  those  deeper  elemental 
facts  of  religion  which  creeds  have  so  often 
struggled  crudely  to  embody.  This  appeal 
was  in  Mr.  Huxley's  thought  when  he  turned 
back  in  admiration  to  the  words  of  an  un- 
known Hebrew  teacher,  and  repeated  after 
him,  almost  in  the  manner  of  a  disciple, 
"  What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but 
to  deal  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy -God?"  It  is  the  same 
appeal  for  a  simple  religion  that  drives  men 
back  to  the  great  teacher  of  Nazareth. 
"  Give  us  the  religion  of  Jesus,"  men  say. 
"  What  do  we  need  more  than  the  religion 
of  the  Beatitudes  and  the  Golden  Rule  ?  " 
You  will  hear  the  same  appeal  for  sim- 
plicity from  the  foremost  men  in  Japan 
and  India. 


A    CIVILIZED   RELIGION.  23 

This  is  not  saying  that  a  simple  religion 
denies  all  use  of  forms,  ceremonies,  or  cult. 
This  is  not  to  deny  that  the  man  of  the 
simplest  religion  may  worship  in  a  beautiful 
church,  or  take  the  words  of  an  elaborate 
service.  This  is  not  to  deny  that  he  can 
write  his  faith  in  thirty-nine  or  even  more 
numerous  articles,  provided  only  that  the 
articles  are  sincere.  Religion  is  in  this  re- 
spect like  a  work  of  art,  a  picture,  a  sym- 
phony, a  cathedral.  Its  genius  does  not 
forbid  ornament  and  variety.  But  its  great- 
ness is  in  its  grand,  simple,  and  total  effect, 
toward  which  all  ornamentation  contributes. 
Our  highest  demand  of  religion  is  for  a 
faith  so  simple  that  any  one  can  understand 
what  it  means.  Has  religion  ever  possessed 
men's  hearts  except  at  those  times  when  it 
could  be  told  in  the  simple  terms  of  a 
gospel? 

A  fourth  demand  that  the  best  men  will 
surely  make  is  that  their  religion  shall  pre- 
serve and  cultivate  the  sentiment  of  rever- 
ence. As  Goethe  has  beautifully  shown, 


24      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN". 

reverence  in  its  three  forms  —  modesty  in 
view  of  what  is  above  us  and  greater  than 
we  are,  due  respect  for  those  who  are  our 
peers  or  our  own  kind,  and  tender  regard  for 
all  lower  modes  of  life  —  is  the  great  har- 
monizing and  civilizing  influence. 

It  has  been  a  special  function  of  the  nobler 
religions  to  develop  reverence.  The  Hebrew 
Psalms,  the  poetry  of  Sophocles,  the  massive 
dignity  of  the  Pyramids,  the  grand  arches  of 
the  Gothic  cathedrals,  the  sublime  "  Passion 
Music  "  —  all  express  the  elevating  move- 
ment of  reverence.  In  the  eyes  of  Reverence 
nothing  in  Nature  is  to  be  called  common 
or  unclean.  In  the  eyes  of  reverent  souls 
every  humblest  human  struggle  upwards, 
every  childish  prayer,  every  simplest  act  of 
love  takes  on  dignity  and  beauty.  In  every 
checkered  page  of  human  history  there  is 
significance  and  worth.  To  the  reverent 
the  great  lives  of  the  heroes  and  masters 
shine  forth  like  the  perennial  stars.  To  the 
reverent  the  world  is  encompassed  in  light. 
Let  religion  give  us  something  to  worship, 


A    CIVILIZED   RELIGION.  25 

the  best  men  cry.  Let  it  continue  to  lift 
our  eyes  to  the  hills.  Let  it  discover  not 
less,  but  more  that  is  worshipful  in  the 
world,  in  history,  and  in  our  present-day 
life. 

It  follows  that  our  highest  modern  re- 
ligion, in  order  to  be  acceptable  to  large- 
hearted  men,  must  be  preeminently  a  religion 
of  ideals.  The  poets  and  the  prophets  must 
have  their  place  in  it.  It  must  commend 
itself  to  the  artists.  It  must  be  put  to 
music  and  sung.  The  word  of  the  ancient 
prophecy  should  prove  true,  that  u  your  sons 
and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy,  your  old 
men  shall  dream  dreams,  your  young  men 
shall  see  visions."  What  is  religion,  unless 
it  shows  men  the  visions  of.  the  things  that 
ought  to  be,  aye !  that  are  already  in  the 
infinite  thought  of  God? 

Must  we  now,  in  the  acts  and  thoughts 
of  our  religion,  go  out  of  the  wholesome 
realm  of  nature  into  a  ghostly  region,  where 
flesh  and  blood  may  not  enter,  where  un- 
real things  are  wont  to  happen  outside  the 


26      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

reign  of  law?  Is  religion,  then,  another 
species  of  life  into  which  the  soul  must  pass, 
as  if  by  a  spell  of  magic,  leaving  the  natural 
order  of  the  world  behind  ?  It  is  certainly 
an  instinct  of  health  in  us  that  resents  every 
non-natural  conception  of  religion.  It  is  by 
this  instinct  of  health  that  young  men  shrink 
from  the  life  of  the  priest,  as  long  as  the 
priest  is  supposed  to  undertake  supernatural 
functions.  We  want  religion,  but  we  do  not 
want  magic  or  superstition.  We  want  a 
religion  for  men,  not  for  "spirits."  The 
religious  man  ought  to  be  the  real  man  at 
his  best.  The  saints  and  the  heroes  are  not 
different  classes  of  men,  the  one  of  natural 
and  the  other  of  somewhat  supernatural 
origin.  The  true  saints  are  the  heroes.  They 
are  all  of  God,  and  their  warm  red  blood  is 
of  His  ordering.  In  plain  words,  we  want 
a  religion  that  shall  relate  us  closely  and 
firmly  to  this  world  with  its  actual  duties, 
cares,  affections,  sorrows,  and  delights.  Here 
is  where  life  lies,  for  better,  for  worse.  Is  it 
possible  here  to  live  a  divine  kind  of  life  ? 


A    CIVILIZED  RELIGION.  27 

Is  it  possible  here  to  find  God  ?  May  the 
spirit  of  heaven  be  here  ?  We  are  learn- 
ing that  through  all  space  the  elements  are 
the  same,  the  same  laws  work  and  the  forces 
are  one.  Is  not  the  life  of  God,  then,  here 
and  now?  We  reach  out  after  a  religion 
that  shall  say  Yes  to  these  questions. 

This  is  to  say  also  that  the  kind  of  religion 
that  we  are  looking  for  must  be  practical 
and  distinctly  ethical.  There  is  one  pertinent 
question  about  all  religion :  Does  it  make 
men  better?  Does  it  work  out  into  righteous, 
truthful,  honorable,  and  generous  character  ? 
If  it  does  not  mean  a  higher  form  of  human 
life  the  all-round  and  civilized  man  will 
vote  it  a  fraud.  If  he  is  predisposed  to  be 
religious  it  is  because,  in  his  thinking, 
religion  and  righteousness  are  involved 
together.  Moreover,  when  we  say  right- 
eousness to-day,  we  mean  not  only  personal 
but  social  righteousness.  There  must  be  a 
quality  in  our  modern  religion  that  shall 
stir  men  to  perform  very  definite  duties  to 
society  and  to  the  world. 


28      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

In  addition  to  all  this  we  want  a  religion 
that  shall  quiet  and  steady  us  in  perplexity, 
rest  and  refresh  us  in  weariness,  comfort  us 
in  trouble,  hearten  us  in  our  work,  deepen 
the  flow  of  our  natural  affections,  give  hope 
and  enthusiasm  to  the  business  of  life,  and 
render  us  fearless  of  death. 

Shall  we  add  one  more  to  this  majestic 
list  of  our  demands  for  the  kind  of  religion 
that  we  want?  We  must  add  another 
demand.  We  are  bound  to  claim  that  our 
religion  shall  be  reasonable.  It  must  rest  in 
a  good  and  profound  philosophy.  We  can- 
not put  up  with  a  religion  that  runs  away 
from  investigation,  that  forbids  us  to  ask 
questions,  or  discourages  thoughtfulness. 
Our  religion  must  be  consistent  and  har- 
monious with  the  rest  of  our  thinking.  It 
must  tally  with  our  science.  It  must  go 
with  history  and  not  against  it. 

We  have  described  such  a  religion  as  we 
should  like  to  possess.  We  have  shown 
what  sort  of  religion  would  befit  the  highest 
type  of  man  whom  we  can  imagine.  Is  there 


A    CIVILIZED   RELIGION.  29 

any  religion  that  answers  to  this  description 
in  all  its  beautiful  outlines?  We  purpose 
to  show  that  there  is  such  a  religion,  exactly 
fitting  the  most  civilized  man. 


30      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER    III. 

A  BIT   OF   ARGUMENT. 

WHAT  splendid  and  wonderful  law  is  it 
in  man's  mind  that  commands  him  to  ask  of 
every  proposition,  however  beautiful,  com- 
fortable, and  desirable  it  may  seem,  Is  it 
true  ?  Yes  !  that  requires  him  to  face  blank 
hopelessness,  death,  and  annihilation  rather 
than  to  embrace  an  easy  and  pleasant  lie  ! 
As  much,  then,  as  we  desire  the  solace,  satis- 
faction, peace,  and  uplift  of  genuine  religion, 
under  so  much  the  more  inexorable  bonds 
are  we  held  to  be  sure  that  our  religion 
agrees  with  reality. 

Serious  and  perplexing  questions  meet  us 
as  soon  as  we  begin  to  think.  We  want  to 
know  why  we  are  here  in  this  world  and 
what  our  destiny  is  ;  what  sort  of  a  world  it 
is,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent ;  what  mighty 
Power  makes  and  maintains  it ;  what  kind 


A   BIT   OF  ARGUMENT.  31 

of  Power  it  is ;  whether  it  cares  for  men  and 
loves  them ;  and  if  this  is  so,  what  must  we 
do  to  come  into  accord,  and  especially  to  act 
in  accord  with  the  great  Power,  or  Life,  out 
of  which  we  spring.  Religion  is  the  attempt 
or  venture  of  man  to  answer  these  profound 
and  urgent  questions. 

We  frankly  approach  the  subject  of  re- 
ligion in  a  somewhat  new  way.  Men  once 
thought  of  religion  as  a  distant  and  quite 
mysterious  realm  about  which  only  a  few 
gifted  souls  ever  had  authentic  tidings.  Re- 
ligion, in  this  view,  was  confessedly  unveri- 
fiable,  except  so  far  as  men  could  trust  the 
testimony  that  a  few  seers  and  prophets 
had  received  in  visions  and  dreams,  or  per- 
haps by  the  direct  word  of  the  deity.  But 
we  do  not  now  think  of  religion  as  confined  to 
a  mysterious  realm,  or  to  the  world  of  the  un- 
known. Our  question  is,  what  shall  we  think 
of  this  world  where  we  are,  with  its  shifting 
phenomena,  its  alternating  sunshine  and  star- 
light, its  imperishable  atoms  and  their  rigo- 
rous laws  of  combination,  its  actual  human 


32      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

toil  and  tragedy,  its  sorrows  and  joys,  its 
failures  and  its  heroisms,  —  yes,  with  its  all- 
encompassing  mysteries,  —  how  shall  we  in- 
terpret its  entirety  ?  What  does  the  quality, 
texture,  and  structure  of  that  which  we  see 
teach  us  with  respect  to  the  nature  of  the 
whole  which  no  man  can  yet  see  ?  In  some 
form  or  other  the  voice  of  religion  asserts 
that  the  magnificent  whole  is  good,  and  not 
bad  or  indifferent. 

The  great  word  in  our  modern  and  more 
mature  thought  of  religion  is  unity  or 
harmony.  Each  science  fits  together  its 
group  of  facts.  Science  is  the  study  of  the 
relations  by  which  things  are  bound  together. 
A  new  scientific  fact  is  simply  the  percep- 
tion of  a  new  relation.  Thus  each  new  ele- 
ment, as  it  is  discovered,  fits  into  a  kinship 
of  elements,  where  before  there  had  been  a 
gap.  As  each  several  science  relates  its 
facts  into  a  group,  constructing  a  sort  of 
poem  or  symphony  from  which  nothing  can 
well  be  omitted,  so  all  the  groups  or  sciences 
are  presently  seen  to  be  related  together. 


A   BIT  OF  ARGUMENT.  33 

No  one  can  be  understood  by  itself.  Botany 
is  the  cousin  to  zoology ;  both  rest  on  min- 
eralogy and  geology.  All  the  elements  out 
of  which,  in  this  earth,  growing  grass  or  flesh 
and  bone  and  blood  are  produced,  are  the 
same  elements  that  shine  at  a  white  heat  in 
the  sun,  while  every  shifting  sun-spot  plays 
its  part  in  our  terrestrial  climate. 

In  all  this  realm  that  we  call  Nature, 
what  is  it  to  find  a  truth  ?  It  is  to  discover 
what  fits  or  matches,  and  makes  harmony. 
The  unrelated  thing  is  not  yet  a  truth  till  its 
relationship  is  found  out.  As  soon  as  the 
scientific  eye  sees,  with  regard  to  the  new 
flower  or  tree,  the  new  chemical  element, 
the  new  planet,  that  this  matches  with  all 
other  things  known ;  as  soon  as  the  astrono- 
mer finds  that  the  hitherto  supposed  dis- 
turbance in  his  calculations  is  in  fact 
demanded  by  the  law  of  gravitation,  that  it 
heralds  the  presence  of  an  unknown  asteroid, 
the  area  of  truth,  that  is,  harmonized 
knowledge,  is  widened. 

We  begin  with  the  idea  of  nature  as  one. 


34      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

We  find  that  throughout  nature  the  charac- 
teristic of  everything  natural  is  that  it  fits 
together  with  all  the  rest.  Each  thing  has 
its  place.  Order  is  the  law.  But  who  can 
stop  with  this  majestic  fact  ?  Can  the  out- 
ward nature  be  a  unity,  while  the  moral  life 
of  man,  with  all  the  profound  and  signifi- 
cant facts  that  constitute  him  as  man,  is 
only  a  confused  and  hopeless  riddle  ?  Must 
we  stand  in  wonder  at  one  moment  at  the 
marvelous  correlation  of  the  machinery  and 
the  forces  of  the  world,  and  then  at  the 
next  moment  be  struck  aghast  at  the  dis- 
orderly results  of  the  working  of  this  Titanic 
system  in  the  one  realm  where  its  working 
concerns  us,  namely,  in  human  life  and  his- 
tory ?  Must  we  see  order  in  one  place  and 
chaos  in  the  other  ?  What  is  this  supposed 
unity  of  nature  worth  if  it  stops  at  the  very 
line  where  life  and  thought  become  actual 
to  us? 

Here  is  the  trouble  with  agnosticism. 
The  agnostic  makes  things  fit  and  harmonize 
in  the  world  of  fleeting  phenomena.  He  fits 


A   BIT  OF  ARGUMENT.  35 

together  successfully  the  pieces  of  the  puzzle. 
But  he  fails  yet  to  see  that  the  completed 
whole  makes  a  picture  or  map,  and  indeed 
has  its  chief  use  in  teaching  the  learner, 
not  the  mechanical  relations  of  the  pieces  of 
pasteboard,  but  rather  the  ideal  relations  of 
the  parts  to  the  whole  of  the  picture. 

What  is  it  indeed  that  imposes  upon  the 
scientific  student  the  confidence  that  his 
world  will  fit  together,  that  is,  will  be  found 
true  ?  It  is  not  nature  alone  that  compels 
this  magnificent  faith  upon  him.  On  the 
contrary,  the  outer  world  at  first  appears  to 
be  full  of  discords  and  contending  powers. 
It  is  the  nature  of  his  own  mind  that  de- 
mands structure,  order,  and  unity  every- 
where. The  inner  nature  by  its  own  con- 
structive necessity  presses  forward  to  expect 
and  to  find  an  orderly  nature  without. 

The  inner  nature  of  the  mind  does  not 
alone  demand  order  and  structure.  Intel- 
lectual necessities  no  less  real  and  deep  im- 
pose an  expectation  of  worth,  significance, 
use,  design.  Yes  !  of  moral  order  and  unity, 


36      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

corresponding  to  the  colossal  organization 
of  forces.  That  is  not  true  which  does  not 
match,  and  fit,  and  harmonize.  A  bad  world, 
a  vain  world,  an  insignificant  world,  a  non- 
moral  world  is  an  unnatural,  that  is,  an  untrue 
world.  Who  does  not  feel  the  force  of  this 
consideration  ?  Shall  we  find  an  orderly 
and  significant  place  in  our  world  for  every 
grain  of  sand  and  atom  of  oxygen,  and 
then  at  last  conclude  with  an  insignificant 
universe?  Must  all  the  lives  of  all  the 
heroes,  the  Beatitudes  and  those  who  have 
exemplified  them,  the  Christ-life  reincar- 
nated however  often,  sweet  friendship  and 
exalted  patriotism  shine  forth  into  void 
space,  have  no  answer,  and  perish  like  a 
breath  ? 

The  demand  in  us  for  truth  is  the  demand 
not  for  mere  facts  —  our  data  only  —  but 
for  the  fitting  together  of  the  facts  into  a 
worthy  and  significant  whole.  A  bad,  futile, 
unethical,  or  godless  world  is  not  thinkable, 
we  say.  It  does  not  make  sense.  Assume 
such  a  world  and  you  have  assumed  chaos 


A   BIT   OF  ARGUMENT.  37 

and  anarchy,  that  is,  untruth.  Truth  implies 
moral  relation  and  fits  only  with  a  good 
universe.  Think  then  the  thought  of  the 
good  God  —  the  divine  universe  —  and 
truth  now  has  found  its  meaning,  its  har- 
mony, its  unity,  as  when  you  have  fitted  the 
right  piece  into  your  map. 

We  do  not  cease  to  ask,  What  did  the 
seers  and  prophets  of  the  old  time  see  and 
say  ?  We  listen  to  all  that  they  say.  What 
did  they  think  of  man's  destiny  ?  How  did 
they  feel  toward  the  Power  that  brought 
men  here,  and  whose  servants  men  are  ? 
Did  the  great  religious  leaders  of  the  race 
believe  this  a  good  world  ?  Was  it  a  good 
God  who  ordered  their  fate  ?  What  did  men 
write  in  their  psalms?  What  have  the 
noblest  poets  said  ?  What  did  the  lonely 
Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  believe  of  the  triumph  of 
righteousness  in  the  world  of  war  and 
oppression  on  which  they  looked  out  ?  How 
did  Jesus  sum  up  human  duty  and  the 
radiant  faith  of  his  life?  What  witnesses 
through  hundreds  of  years  have  added  their 


38      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

testimony,  bought  with  effort,  blood,  and 
tears,  often  sealed  with  death,  to  the  mag- 
nificent conception  of  a  righteous  and 
beneficent  God? 

We  listen  to  the  voices  of  a  grand  pro- 
cession of  men  and  women  who  in  our  vision 
seem  to  pass  by.  The  noblest  minds  of 
mankind  are  there.  Plato  and  Socrates  are 
in  their  midst;  Epictetus,  the  slave,  and 
Marcus  Aurelius,  the  emperor ;  Hypatia  and 
Augustine  are  there,  with  unknown  names 
from  the  far  East,  Buddhist  and  Confucian 
saints.  The  reformers  are  there,  brave  here- 
tics, men  in  advance  of  their  times,  Servetus 
and  Swedenborg  and  Parker.  Does  the  line 
grow  thin,  as  the -men  and  women  of  the 
very  latest  generation,  our  own  fathers  and 
mothers  and  friends,  our  own  contemporaries, 
at  last  pass  in  review  ?  What  shall  we  say 
of  the  century  in  which  Martineau  and 
Emerson  have  discoursed  and  written;  in 
which  Tennyson,  Whittier,  and  the  Brown- 
ings have  sung ;  in  which  Wilberforce,  Garri- 
son, and  Shaftsbury  have  struck  the  fetters 


A    BIT  OF  ARGUMENT.  39 

from  the  oppressed;  in  which  Lincoln  and 
Gladstone  have  held  empire;  in  which 
Arnold  and  Mark  Hopkins  and  Jowett  have 
been  among  the  educators  ;  in  which  Living- 
stone's name  is  only  the  glorious  first  among 
the  explorers  and  pioneers  of  civilization ! 

Shall  we  study  the  habits  of  insects  and 
microbes,  and  not  study  the  thoughts,  the 
ideals,  the  faiths,  and  the  hopes  of  this 
mighty  procession  of  thinkers,  seers,  and 
doers  ?  We  hear  what  they  say  ;  we  gather 
up  the  net  result  of  their  teaching.  All 
dissonances  among  them  vanish  in  the 
volume  of  their  grand  affirmation  and 
agreement.  Their  teaching  is  one  in  respect 
to  certain  central  facts,  such  as  these :  that 
the  religious  life  is  real  and  valid ;  that  the 
Power  over  us  is  righteous  and  altogether 
lovable  ;  that  no  one  ever  trusted  Him  and 
found  Him  to  fail ;  that  "  He  is  closer  to  us 
than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 
feet ;  "  that  in  some  real  sense,  as  the  ancient 
Greek  poet  wrote,  "  we  are  His  offspring," 
and,  as  Jesus  taught,  He  is  our  Father ;  that 


40      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

His  service  and  the  doing  of  His  beneficent 
will  is  life  eternal,  in  which  there  is  no  fear 
of  death. 

We  do  not  accept  these  wonderful  state- 
ments because  they  have  been  revealed  to 
us  at  the  mouths  of  holy  men.  We  who 
are  the  'children  of  Christian  traditions  do 
not  accept  them  because  Jesus  has  be- 
queathed them  to  us.  We  do  something 
better  and  worthier :  we  do  what  Jesus  and 
all  these  others  bade  us  do  ;  we  do  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  do  in  respect  to  every 
theory  or  proposition  of  science.  "  See  for 
yourselves,"  all  the  great  leaders  and  teachers 
seem  to  command  us.  "  Open  your  eyes  to 
life  and  reality.  Ask  yourselves  whether 
the  things  which  we  see  and  say  are  not  true." 

"  True  !  "  We  mean  here  the  same  that  we 
meant  before.  That  is  true  which  fits,  which 
harmonizes,  which,  as  we  say,  "  makes  sense." 
That  is  not  true  which  is  unrelated,  discord- 
ant, outside  of  the  unity.  Religion  is  that 
which  makes  unity  and  binds  all  things  to- 
gether. It  is  that  which  brings  the  outward 


A   BIT   OF  ARGUMENT.  41 

world  and  the  inner  life  of  man,  nature  and 
history,  and  human  society,  into  the  terms 
of  a  harmony.  It  is  this,  or  it  fails.  It  is 
not  enough  that  it  should  preside  over  a 
separate  realm  apart  from  our  natural  life, 
only  at  times  breaking  through  to  announce 
itself.  It  must  assume  the  presidency  of  the 
whole  realm  of  being.  Nature  itself  must 
be  the  orderly  mode  of  its  manifestation.  In 
plain  words,  religion  is  the  divine  order  of 
the  universe.  Either  God  is  not,  or  else,  as 
we  hold,  and  as  all  the  teachers  assure  us, 
He  is  God  of  all. 

The  figure  of  the  map  and  its  pieces,  like 
most  parables,  was  imperfect.  The  master 
thought  of  God  is  not  another  piece,  added 
to  the  rest  in  order  to  make  the  whole  com- 
plete. It  is  rather  the  completed  whole 
which  all  the  pieces  combine  to  make.  They 
all  combine  to  affirm  God,  as  our  own 
natures  cry  out  together  for  God.  In 
hints  and  broken  pictures  the  great  thought 
had  always  been  with  us.  Now  at  last  we  have 
the  vision  in  its  beauty  and  oneness.  Try 


42      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

anything  else  or  anything  less,  and  straight- 
way the  whole  fabric  of  a  universe  falls 
asunder.  It  must  be  a  divine  universe  or  it 
is  not  thinkable  or  true  to  the  mind  of  man. 
The  beneficent  and  living  God  must  be 
wholly  in  it,  or  else  we  are  but  shadow 
men  and  the  children  of  shadows,  and  all 
our  science  and  thinking  are  brought  to  con- 
fusion. Unless  this  is  God's  world,  nothing 
in  it  can  be  trusted. 

The  old  test  for  a  truth  among  Jews,  Mo- 
hammedans, Christians,  was :  Who  uttered 
it  ?  What  inspired  teacher  vouched  for  it  ? 
How  did  he  name  it?  By  what  signs  or 
evidence  did  he  make  it  sure?  The  new 
and  larger  test  is-,  What  genuine  fact  or 
experience  did  the  prophet  or  teacher  try 
to  set  forth?  What  star  did  he  see?  If 
star  it  was  it  is  still  in  God's  heavens  ;  it 
is  no  matter  by  what  name  its  first  dis- 
coverer called  it.  Do  we  see  it  to-day? 
Where  then  shall  we  map  it  down  among 
our  constellations  ? 

The  method  of  religion  to  which  we  are 


A   BIT  OF  ARGUMENT.  43 

now  brought  opens  up  complete  expla- 
nation for  the  strange  diversities  and  con- 
tradictions in  the  history  of  the  religious 
development  of  the  world.  How  could 
there  be  so  many  rival  religions  ?  How 
could  any  one  be  true  while  so  many  were 
false?  What  one  out  of  all  the  changing 
churches,  denominations,  and  sects  should 
we  trust?  We  have  the  clue  to  answer 
these  perplexing  questions. 

A  civilized  religion  demands  civilized 
men  as  its  teachers.  A  civilized  religion 
waits  for  a  civilized  age.  Only  the  high 
mountain-tops  will  catch  the  sunshine  while 
it  is  yet  early  dawn.  The  world  of  Con- 
stantine  was  not  ripe  for  the  religion  of  think- 
ing and  loving  men,  for  the  religion  of  a 
righteous  commonwealth  ;  men  were  still  ex- 
perimenting with  idolatries  and  superstitions. 
The  ages  waited  long  for  a  unifying  science, 
for  the  framers  of  a  true  democracy ;  mean- 
while men  were  split  into  warring  and  dog- 
matic sects. 

The  century  of  Napoleon,  of  Disraeli,  and 


44      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

of  Bismarck,  a  century  into  the  middle  of 
which  human  slavery  lasted  in  America,  the 
century  that  saw  at  its  close  two  Anglo-Saxon 
nations  each  at  war  beyond  seas,  could  not 
be  asked  to  think  out  the  grounds  of  its  re- 
ligion or  to  apply  to  religion  its  own  recently 
discovered  doctrine  of  evolution.  The  nine- 
teenth century  was  bound  to  be  a  period  of 
confused  and  conflicting  thought,  of  secta- 
rianism and  skepticism.  The  very  rapidity 
of  material  progress  withdrew  the  interest  of 
multitudes  from  the  subjects  of  moral  and 
spiritual  advancement.  It  will  not  always  be 
so.  A  civilized  religion  fit  to  make  civilized 
men,  free  of  superstition,  exclusiveness,  and 
bigotry,  grounded,  in  reason,  illustrated  by 
science,  is  now  slowly  and  surely  coming  to 
the  front ;  it  has  been  made  manifest  here 
and  there  in  many  a  noble  life  ;  it  has  hardly 
yet  taken  on  organized  form.  The  new  call 
is  for  those  who  shall  proclaim  it  in  its 
beauty  and  power?  Again  and  again  the 
true  gentleman  has  appeared ;  we  know 
his  likeness.  But  the  age  of  the  gentleman 
is  still  to  come. 


A   BIT  OF  ARGUMENT.  45 

One  thing  more  and  this  chapter  will  be 
concluded.  There  is  one  test  of  truth  at 
which  we  have  only  hinted.  We  have  seen 
that  truth  means  fitness  or  harmony  in 
thought.  The  true  finds  its  place  and  matches 
with  other  trutlis  in  the  realm  of  thought. 
The  true  also  fits  in  the  realm  of  conduct. 
How  does  our  religion  work?  How  does 
the  man  get  on  who  bears  into  the  actual 
turmoil  of  life  the  thought  of  a  good  God 
and  a  divine  universe  ?  Here  is  the  prac- 
tical test  of  a  civilized  religion.  Will  it 
apply  and  match  with  reality?  Can  one 
take  it  out  of  the  shrine  and  not  fear  to  use 
it  upon  the  streets  ?  Will  it  prove  to  be  a 
new,  intense,  practical,  and  civilizing  force  ? 
This  is  what  we  hold.  It  must  be  so,  if  re- 
ligion is  valid  at  all.  If  this  is  God's  world 
it  must  be  well  and  only  well  and  well  at  all 
times  to  believe  so,  and  to  behave  so,  and  not 
to  fear  the  consequences  of  this  mighty  faith. 
We  hope  that  every  chapter  of  this  book  will 
now  converge  and  grow  together  to  make 
this  fact  clear  beyond  cavil  or  question. 


46      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

SPIKIT — WHAT    IT    IS. 

IT  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  show 
what  we  mean  by  saying  that  God  is  spirit. 
It  will  be  seen  that  there  is  nothing  in 
which  we  believe  so  profoundly  as  we  be- 
lieve in  spirit. 

Fortunately,  our  first  approach  to  this  sub- 
ject is  easy.  Any  child  may  understand 
that  the  most  real  things  are  invisible. 
We  look  out,  for  instance,  upon  the  ocean 
heaving  with  the  rising  tide,  lifting  ships 
like  toys,  pouring  through  a  hundred  creeks, 
and  forcing  back  the  torrent  of  great  rivers. 
We  see  the  forms  of  motion,  the  vast  volume 
of  moving  waters,  the  slight  works  of  man. 
What  is  it  that  we  do  not  see  and  for  which 
we  have  only  a  name  ?  It  is  the  force  that 
plays  over  the  seas  and  lifts  their  tidal  waves. 
It  is  the  infinite  force  that  binds  earth  and 


SPIRIT—  WHAT  IT  IS.  47 

moon  and  planets  and  central  sun  together 
and  keeps  them  all  spinning  in  their  place 
among  the  starry  systems.  We  all  believe 
in  this  force ;  we  call  it  gravitation.  It 
stretches  out  its  hand  to  us  from  the  in- 
visible realm.  When  we  say  spirit,  we 
mean  the  infinite  and  invisible  force  that 
shows  itself  in  gravitation. 

We  stand  upon  the  street  and  see  the 
crowded  electric  car  pass  by.  We  see  the 
form  of  human  machinery,  we  see  the  faces 
of  passengers.  But  no  one  sees  what  plays 
through  the  machine  and  moves  the  weight 
of  hundreds  of  such  cars.  The  closer  we 
get  to  the  reality  the  more  it  hides  itself. 
And  yet  it  is  around  us  like  the  air  ;  it  plays 
about  the  planets  as  it  plays  about  our  little 
machines.  The  one  fact  that  we  believe  in  as 
fully  as  we  believe  in  cars  and  wires  and  men 
is  this  unseen  mystery  that  we  call  elec- 
tricity. When  we  speak  of  it,  what  else  are 
we  thinking  of  but  of  spirit,  the  unseen  re- 
ality, of  which  this  mode  of  force  is  another 
manifestation  ?  That  is  spirit,  we  say,  which 


48      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

discloses  itself  in  infinite  force.  In  other 
words,  the  realm  of  spirit  is  the  realm  of 
power  or  energy. 

Here  is  the  mystery  of  light  as  it  blazes  at 
noon.-d.ay,  as  it  flashes  at  night  from  point 
to  point  along  our  coasts,  as  it  sparkles  from 
a  myriad  stars.  The  mystery  runs  unseen 
along  a  stretch  of  throbbing  wire  and  leaps 
into  our  sight  from  a  tiny  point  of  carbon. 
It  flies  through  the  cold  spaces  from  the  sun 
till  it  irradiates  each  little  particle  of  our 
atmosphere.  We  see  only  what  it  does.  It 
we  never  see.  But  we  believe  in  nothing  so 
completely  as  we  believe  in  this  mystery  of 
the  light.  When  we  think  of  this  wonder 
of  the  light  we  are  close  to  the  realm  of  the 
unseen  and  eternal.  That  which  makes  the 
light  is  spirit. 

Perhaps  we  fancy  that  we  know  something 
of  the  world  of  matter.  What  then  is  mat- 
ter ?  We  try  to  catch  and  analyze  its  unseen 
atoms,  but  they  always  elude  us.  They  re- 
solve themselves  into  numbers  and  propor- 
tions. All  that  we  can  do  with  them  is  to 


SPIRIT— WHAT  IT  IS.  49 

express  them  in  terms  of  thought.  We 
know  that  they  have  certain  relations  with 
one  another.  Together  they  construct  a 
thinkable  universe.  The  most  characteristic 
fact  about  it  is  that  it  is  thinkable.  Its  very 
reality  is  that  it  meets  the  demands  and 
takes  on  the  terms  of  our  thought.  It  cor- 
responds to  our  mathematics.  Which  is 
it  indeed,  a  real  world  or  an  ideal  world  ? 
Let  us  say  that  it  is  real,  because  it  is 
ideal,  that  is,  thinkable.  Conceive  its  atoms, 
if  you  like,  as  so  many  whirling  centres  of 
force;  let  the  atoms  themselves  be  there- 
fore invisible ;  let  them  only  obey  fixed 
laws  and  move  in  orderly  and  constant 
relations,  and  the  world  of  matter  is  thus 
at  least  as  explicable  and  thinkable  as  if 
you  thought  of  it  as  made  up  of  so  many 
little  inert  bits  of  hard  and  visible  sub- 
stance. There  is  nothing  more  real  and  sub- 
stantial than  force  is. 

It  looks,  then,  as  if,  when  we  try  to  get  at 
matter  itself,  we  only  succeed  in  making 
another  approach  to  spirit,  the  unseen  and 


50      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

eternal.  It  looks  as  if  we  might  well  say : 
That  which  plays  through  all  forms  of  matter, 
and  constitutes  matter,  is  spirit.  Let  us  say 
that  spirit  is  the  reality,  and  matter  is  its 
form,  or  dress.  Let  us  say  that  the  world 
of  matter  is  only  the  manifestation  of  spirit. 
It  is  the  vast  parable  or  picture  book,  through 
which  spirit  reveals  itself  and  writes  its 
messages.  If  we  believe  in  matter  at  all, 
how  can  we  help  believing  in  that  which 
expresses  itself  in  and  through  matter? 
And  this  is  spirit. 

We  are  upon  a  line  of  thought  where  we 
are  straightway  carried  further.  What  is  it 
that  matter  is  forever  doing  throughout  the 
whole  realm  of  visible  things  ?  It  is  always 
running  in  lines  and  curves  and  arranging 
itself  in  patterns.  It  is  a  marvelous  geometer : 
it  is  an  infinite  artist ;  it  cannot  appear  in 
the  clouds  without  making  pictures  ;  it  can- 
not leap  into  frost  work  without  drawing 
beautiful  designs  ;  it  is  crystalline  in  the 
heart  of  the  rocks  ;  it  moves  in  proportion 
and  rhythm  in  the  leaves  of  trees  >  it  delights 


SPIRIT—  WHAT  IT  IS.  51 

in  colors ;  it  is  ready  everywhere  to  spring 
into  harmony  at  the  call  of  the  musician. 
The  musical  intervals  are  in  nature ;  the 
material  is  at  hand  suited  to  work  into  all 
manner  of  musical  instruments.  A  principle 
of  rhythm  is  in  the  deep  law  of  wave  move- 
ment through  which  all  forces  proceed. 

What  is  this  mystery,  unseen  indeed,  yet 
in  and  through  all  things,  that  transforms 
and  over-rules  chaos,  that  shows  itself  in 
numbers  and  beautiful  forms,  in  flowers  and 
gems,  in  subtle  harmonies,  in  far-reaching 
and  majestic  order  ?  This  too  is  spirit,  the 
One,  the  builder,  the  architect  of  the  uni- 
verse. There  is  no  fact  that  we  believe 
in  more  solidly  than  we  believe  in  this 
unseen  and  eternal  author  and  designer  of 
beauty  ?  It  is  everywhere  one  and  the  same. 
The  laws,  the  lines  and  curves,  the  patterns, 
the  rhythm  and  the  harmony,  here  and  in  the 
Pleiades,  all  go  to  make  one  universe  and 
symphony.  Some  sort  of  design  is  in  the 
warp  and  woof  of  all  the  structure. 

May  we  go  a  step  further  and  call  spirit 


52      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

righteous  or  good  ?  Surely  it  is  hard  not  to 
take  this  step.  How  can  we  say  anything 
except  "good"  of  that  which  is  orderly, 
which  constructs  beauty,  which  makes  har- 
monies and  unity,  and  the  wonder  of  life  ? 
Goodness  is  only  another  and  higher  species 
of  power. 

There  is  another  side  of  life  where  we 
have  now  to  look  for  the  working  of  spirit. 
We  must  take  up  the  human  aspect  of  the 
world.  What  is  it  that  characterizes  man 
and  gives  him  worth?  Here  for  instance 
is  a  friend :  what  constitutes  him  a  friend  ? 
Is  it  his  dress,  form,  figure,  or  features? 
Evidently  we  respect  and  love  not  what  we 
see,  but  that  which -is  behind  his  dress,  and 
form,  and  face.  Not  the  eyes,  but  that 
which  looks  through  the  eyes  urges  the 
lover  or  husband  to  say,  "In  thy  face  I 
see  the  Eternal."  What  shall  we  call  this 
unseen  reality  which  is  the  "  I,"  or  self  ? 
There  is  no  word  that  better  expresses  it 
than  when  we  say,  It  is  spirit.  Surely  there 
is  nothing  that  we  believe  in  more  solidly. 


SPIRIT—  WHAT  IT  IS.  53 

What  am  I  ?  My  body  is  only  form.  I  say 
of  it,  it  is  "  mine,"  as  I  speak  of  my  cloth- 
ing. I  am  that  which  thinks,  and  lives, 
and  is  conscious.  I  am  spirit.  By  the  same 
token  I  find  that  other  men  also  are  spirit. 
This  fact  holds  good  not  of  the  dead,  but 
of  the  living.  Or,  if  the  noble  dead  are  still 
spirit,  it  is  because  they  are  not  really  dead. 
There  are  many  who  are  greatly  impressed 
with  the  sensitive  machinery  of  nerves  and 
brain  cells  through  which  the  marvelous  tele- 
phone connection  of  the  universe  is  brought 
home  to  us.  There  is  no  life  or  conscious- 
ness, they  say,  without  this  material  machin- 
ery. We  need  care  little  by  what  name  this 
delicate  machinery  is  called,  whether  material 
or  physiological.  The  significant  fact  about 
it  is,  that  it  serves  spirit,  and  is  indeed  all 
translatable  into  the  terms  of  spirit.  The 
pulsations  that  come  ticking  over  the  wires 
under  the  sea  are  pulsations  of  thought; 
they  tick  in  ideas ;  they  carry  human  feeling 
to  stir  feeling,  either  of  joy  or  sympathy. 
So  with  the  nerves  of  consciousness  ;  so  of  the 


54      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

rhythm  and  pulsation  through  which  we  feel 
not  heat  and  cold  only,  but  color  and  beauty, 
praise  or  blame,  the  subtle  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.  The  nerves  themselves  are 
only  the  telegraph  lines  of  the  realm  of  in- 
telligence, feeling,  spirit. 

It  is  rather  the  fashion  of  modern  men  to 
express  their  modesty  in  view  of  the  vast- 
riess  of  the  universe,  its  colossal  distances, 
its  millions  of  years.  What  is  this  little 
planet,  and  the  pigmies  upon  its  surface  ? 
The  modesty  is  well,  but  the  more  startling 
side  of  the  problem  is  not  stated  in  this  plea 
of  human  littleness.  The  familiar  nursery 
verses  are  nearer  to  the  fact : 

"  Ah,  you  are  so  great,  and  I  am  so  small, 
I  tremble  to  think  of  you,  world,  at  all. 
And  yet  when  I  said  my  prayers  to-day, 
A  whisper  inside  me  seemed  to  say, 
You  are  more  than  the  earth,  though  you  are  such  a 

dot; 
You  can  love  and  think,  and  the  world  cannot." 

How  is  it  that  we  know  anything  about 
the  distances  of  the  stellar  spaces  or  the 


SPIRIT—  WHAT  IT  IS.  55 

years  of  geologic  time  ?  How  is  it  that  we 
can  send  our  imagination  journeying  back  to 
the  primitive  world  of  the  tree  ferns  and  the 
Saurian  reptiles  ?  How  is  it  that  these  few 
pounds  of  matter  can  receive  an  impression 
of  a  universe  dominated  by  laws  of  order  ? 
It  is  that  man  is  not  merely  nitrogen  and 
other  elements.  He  is  spirit,  of  one  sub- 
stance with  that  which  builds  the  world. 

Let  us  be  as  modest  as  we  please  for  our- 
selves. But  let  us  recall  some  of  the  names 
of  the  great  thinkers  who  have  taught  us 
our  modesty  —  Galileo,  Copernicus,  New- 
ton, La  Place.  Where  shall  we  begin  or 
stop  the  enumeration  of  the  men  who  have 
actually  "  thought  the  thoughts  of  God  after 
him  "  ?  Here  is  mind,  that  is,  spirit  in  man, 
answering  to  the  universal  mind  or  spirit. 
There  is  no  limit,  in  the  case  cf  the  great 
geometers  and  astronomers,  to  the  scope  of 
this  answering  thought.  As  the  element 
of  the  infinite  lies  in  the  mind  of  God,  so 
the  same  infinite  element  seems  to  answer 
back  from  the  mind  of  man,  as  often  as  he 


56      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

thinks  at  his  best.  This  is  only  to  say  that 
spirit  is  one  in  God  and  in  man. 

We  feel  the  force  of  the  same  or  kindred 
facts  when  we  come  into  touch  with  the 
poets,  the  artists,  the  builders  of  the  great 
cathedrals,  the  architects  of  the  Parthe- 
non, the  makers  of  music.  Who  can  be  a 
materialist  when  he  reads  his  Homer  or 
Shakespeare  or  Burns  ?  Who  is  a  material- 
ist in  Westminster  Abbey?  Who  can  hear 
Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony  or  Bach's  "  Pas- 
sion Music,' '  and  not  be  assured  that  the 
glorious  melody  flows  out  of  the  realm  of 
spirit?  God,  the  elemental  life,  utters  him- 
self through  every  glorious  work  of  human 
genius.  Fitly  have  men  called  such  work 
inspiration,  that  is,  the  breathing  of  spirit. 

What  else  or  less  can  we  say,  when  we 
now  begin  to  interpret  the  world  and  all 
human  life  into  moral  terms  ?  We  believe 
in  justice,  in  truth,  in  mercy,  in  generosity. 
We  stand  in  the  company  of  the  heroes ;  we 
hear  the  messages  of  the  genuine  saints  ;  we 
read  the  twenty-third  Psalm,  or  "  Crossing 


SPIRIT—  WHAT  IT  IS.  57 

the  Bar."  We  hear  the  voices  of  those  who 
in  all  times  and  nations  have  done  righteous- 
ness ;  we  say  Amen  to  Jesus  in  any  one  of  the 
Beatitudes.  Let  us  continue  to  be  modest, 
but  we  must  henceforth  confess  that  we  have 
seen  spirit,  at  least  in  the  men  and*  women 
who  have  said  these  stirring  words  and 
done  beautiful  deeds,  and  thus  set  forth 
Goodness  triumphant.  There  is  nothing  that 
we  more  stoutly  believe  in  than  spirit  in 
those  moments  when  our  souls  believe  in 
goodness. 

As    Matthew   Arnold,  cool  critic  that  he 
was,  says,  at  the  thought  of  his  father  : 

"  And  through  thee  I  believe 
In  the  noble  and  great  who  are  gone. 

Souls  tempered  with  fire, 
Fervent,  heroic,  and  good, 
Helpers  and  friends  of  mankind. 
Servants  of  God  !  or  sons 
Shall  I  not  call  you?  because 
Not  as  servants  ye  know 
Your  Father's  innermost  mind." 

The  fact  is  that  in  the  noblest  human  life 


58      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

we  see  spirit  in  its  highest  manifestation. 
We  witness  power,  beauty,  order,  justice, 
goodness  in  their  divine  unity.  This  is  our 
modern  form  of  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation.  They  used  to  say  that  God 
had  been  seen  in  a  single  life.  We  say  that 
God  has  been  and  is  in  many  lives.  Who 
of  us  has  not  known  some  one  so  loyal, 
brave,  devoted,  and  just  as  to  have  impressed 
us  with  this  fact  of  the  divine  life  or  spirit 
in  man,  answering  back  to  the  infinite  life 
of  God?  We  have  known  young  lives  fear- 
less and  true-hearted,  knights  of  the  modern 
times,  who  demonstrated  what  spirit  is. 
They  came  from  God.  How  else  came  they  ? 
Some  of  them  may  have  left  us,  but  they 
surely  went  to  God. 

"  E'en  as  he  trod  that  day  to  God,  so  walked  he  from 

his  birth 

In  simpleness  and  gentleness   and  honor  and  clean 
mirth." 

See  now  what  we  must  say  of  spirit.  We 
approached  it  first  on  the  side  of  outward 
nature,  and  we  found  spirit  to  be  the  under- 


SPIRIT— WHAT  IT  IS.  59 

lying  unseen  reality  eveiy where.  It  is  force, 
intelligence  order,  law,  beauty;  it  is  that 
which  constructs  and  makes  all  things  one. 
We  approach  the  same  reality  as  it  expresses 
itself  more  completely  in  the  forms  of  life, 
and  specially  in  the  life  of  man.  It  is  that 
which  loves  and  is  lovable  ;  it  is  that  which 
is  beneficent  and  does  good ;  it  is  kind  to 
man,  and  "  entering  into  holy  souls  makes 
them  friends  of  God  and  prophets  "  —  nay, 
rather,  sons  of  God.  Spirit  in  its  highest 
manifestations  is  love  or  goodness. 

Does  the  objector  stand  waiting  to  ask, 
Where  is  spirit,  when  we  see  ugliness  and 
evil  and  hate  ?  The  answer  is  not  so  diffi- 
cult as  many  try  to  make  it  appear.  We 
believe  in  infinite  power  none  the  less 
because  on  occasion  our  puny  arms  cannot 
carry  their  load,  and  our  little  engines  are 
unable  to  generate  sufficient  force  to  breast 
the  stormy  sea.  And  we  likewise  believe  in 
the  infinite  Light,  shining  through  space, 
none  the  less,  because  through  the  hours  of 
night,  darkness  shrouds  our  homes.  So  we 


60      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

who  have  looked  on  the  forms  of  ugliness 
in  which  beauty  did  not  yet  disclose  itself 
learn  to  love  eternal  beauty  all  the  more. 
So  we  who  have  been  unjust  and  selfish 
long  for  the  fullness  of  love  in  which  no 
evil  or  selfish  thought  can  live. 

We  do  not  say  that  the  picture  is  good  to 
the  near-sighted  man  who  fixes  his  eye  on 
one  spot  —  on  the  blackness  of  a  cloud ; 
we  say  that  the  picture  is  good  to  him  who 
sees  it  as  a  whole.  We  do  not  say  that  the 
great  drama  is  good  to  him  who  sees  only  a 
single  act.  We  do  not  say  that  a  single 
aspect  of  nature  is  good.  We  say  that  the 
infinite  spirit  behind  nature  is  good,  lovable, 
adorable.  Nothing  else  is  credible  or  think- 
able. Life  is  not  livable  except  in  this 
thought. 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  LOVE   GOD.  61 


CHAPTER    V. 

WHAT   IT    IS    TO   LOVE   GOD. 

THE  most  religious  people  of  antiquity 
summed  up  all  religion  in  a  single  law  in 
two  parts.  The  first  part  was,  Thou  shalt 
love  God.  The  second  part  was,  Thou  shalt 
love  man,  thy  neighbor,  as  thyself.  Jesus 
made  this  very  ancient  law  the  centre  of  his- 
teaching.  Is  anything  higher  or  more  uni- 
versal ? 

It  is  common  for  men  to  think  that  this 
law,  especially  in  its  first  clause,  is  vague 
and  difficult.  "  We  can  love  our  fellow- 
men,  since  we  can  see  them,"  it  is  said, 
"  but  we  cannot  easily  love  God  whom  we 
have  never  seen.  Much  less  can  we  love 
God  to  order,  as  if  love  could  be  com- 
pelled !  "  This  difficulty  is  more  imaginary 
than  real.  In  fact,  with  most  men  the  hard- 
est thing  is  to  love  their  neighbors.  We 


62      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

will  not  say  that  it  is  hard  to  love  our 
neighbors  as  ourselves ;  it  is  not  always 
easy  to  love  them  at  all.  Go  upon  the 
crowded  street  on  any  average  day,  and  tell 
us  how  many  men  you  meet  whom  you 
really  love  ?  You  look  into  their  faces  and 
you  see  coarseness,  greed,  animalism,  sel- 
fishness. Do  they  love  you  ?  They  often 
elbow  you  and  push  you  aside.  True  ! 
Some  hard-featured  men  may  be  lovable  in 
their  own  homes.  But  they  do  not  certainly 
show  you  their  lovable  side.  No !  It  is 
really  easier  to  love  God,  though  we  do  not 
see  him,  than  it  is  to  love  men  as  we  fre- 
quently see  them. 

As  matter  of  fact,  the  love  of  God  is  one 
of  the  earliest  experiences  both  with  primi- 
tive people  and  with  children.  The  child 
easily  gets  an  idea  which  savages,  like  the 
American  Indian,  seem  to  have  entertained 
in  all  parts  of  the  world,  of  a  good  Power 
or  Spirit,  somewhat  to  be  feared  indeed,  but 
also  to  be  loved.  The  good  Powers  will 
watch  over  the  obedient  and  shield  them 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  LOVE   GOD.  63 

from  evil.  The  idea  of  the  child  may  be 
very  vague  and  crude,  but  it  is  real.  It 
begets  trust  and  love  and  hope  —  the  ele- 
ments of  all  religion.  The  feeling  of  many 
a  child  toward  the  unseen  deity  may  be  as 
warm  as  his  feeling  toward  his  own  parents. 
Shadowy  as  his  knowledge  of  God  is, 
changeable  as  is  his  sentiment  toward  God, 
who  shall  say  that  his  knowledge  of  his 
nurse  or  his  mother  is  any  less  shadowy,  or 
his  sentiment  toward  them  any  less  change- 
able ?  If  any  love  rests  upon  reality,  if  any 
love  is  more  substantial  than  nerve  motion, 
the  child's  beginnings  of  love  to  God  must 
be  real.  The  child's  emotion  goes  out,  as 
all  love  must  go,  toward  kindness  or  good- 


As  children  come  to  the  age  of  thought- 
fulness,  and  begin  to  ask  questions,  they  are 
compelled  to  adjust  themselves  to  a  larger 
thought  of  God.  They  have  probably 
begun  with  thinking  of  God  as  located  in 
a  place  in  the  sky.  They  have  thought  of 
a  great  person  in  a  body,  like  their  father, 


64      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

only  grander.  They  must  think  now  of  an 
omnipresent  Life,  of  invisible  spirit,  like 
their  own  spirit,  behind  body  and  form. 
This  is  not  a  hard  thought.  Man  has  not 
lost  God  or  lost  religion  because  he  thinks 
and  questions.  Who  ever  had  more  buoyant 
trust  in  God  than  the  ancient  and  anony- 
mous poet-philosopher  who  wrote,  "  Whither 
shall  I  go  from  thy  presence  ?  " 

The  young  thinker  begins  to  doubt  be- 
cause he  cannot  see  God.  Let  us  pursue 
his  doubt,  and  search  out  what  it  means. 
Take  any  moment  when  love  acts,  and  see 
what  starts  your  love.  It  is  instinctively  set 
in  motion,  is  it  not,  by  some  spark  or  ex- 
pression of  goodness,  by  a  look,  a  smile,  an 
act,  a  word,  a  message,  telegraphed,  as  it 
were,  from  the  person  whom  we  love  to  our- 
selves ?  Love  flashes  out  of  the  unseen, 
through  the  wires  and  machinery  of  our 
senses,  to  the  invisible  self  or  spirit  within 
us.  We  may  see  the  face  and  form  of  our 
friend,  or  he  may  be  on  the  other  side  of  the 
planet.  As  we  have  shown  in  the  former 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO   LOVE   GOD.  65 

chapter,  that  which  thinks  and  loves  is 
spirit.  We  never  really  see  it,  but  only  its 
expressions  and  manifestations.  That  which 
we  love  also  is  spirit.  We  have  never  seen 
Lincoln  or  William  the  Silent.  As  we  read 
their  words,  as  we  catch  the  idea  of  their  lives, 
as  touching  or  kindling  stories  come  of  their 
humanity  or  their  heroism,  we  love  them  as 
if  no  barrier  of  time  or  space  separated  us 
from  them.  Is  it  unreal  sentiment  when 
thousands  of  men  and  women  to-day  would 
spring  to  welcome  the  peasant  prophet  of  Gal- 
ilee? No  !  This  is  true  love  for  the  beauty 
of  goodness.  Not  having  seen,  men  love. 
For  love  belongs  to  the  realm,  not  of  matter 
and  visible  things,  but  of  spirit,  the  im- 
manent reality. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  case  of  most 
persons  love  proceeds  by  flashes  of  con- 
sciousness and  at  intervals.  There  are  few 
in  whom  it  flows  all  the  time  and  constantly. 
As  one  walks  at  night  through  the  streets  of 
a  city,  the  bright  points  where  the  lamps 
blaze  alternate  with  comparative  darkness. 


66      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

So  with  men's  love  —  there  are  dark  spaces, 
and  then  suddenly  at  the  sight  of  a  true 
friend's  face,  the  grasp  of  a  hand,  the  open- 
ing of  a  letter,  the  stirring  of  a  memory, 
love  comes  uppermost  and  seems  to  fill  the 
life. 

Our  daily  intercourse  with  our  friends 
thus  goes  on  with  only  occasional  glimpses 
through  the  veil  of  outward  form  into  the 
realm  of  spirit.  What  we  mostly  see  is  the 
commonplace  and  routine  aspect  of  men's 
lives.  The  generous,  the  heroic,  the  lovable 
may  be  close  to  us,  and  yet  may  not  shine 
through  to  our  slow  perception  for  days  at  a 
time.  It  is  different,  however,  when  any 
good  friend  passes  -quite  away  from  our  pres- 
ence. There  is  a  process  of  idealization  — 
call  it  rather  realization  —  in  which  the  com- 
monplace vanishes,  and  the  true  worth  of  the 
life,  translated  into  terms  of  spirit,  lifts  it- 
self into  view.  As  when  we  stand  off  from 
the  city  at  night,  seeing  it  across  the  water, 
the  dark  spaces  lose  themselves  and  only 
light  appears, —  light  from  many  a  window, 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  LOVE   GOD.  (M 

and  light  reflected  back  from  the  sky, —  so 
as  we  stand  off  from  any  great  and  good 
life  the  net  effect  at  last  is  only  of  bright- 
ness, love,  the  action  of  goodness.  The  net 
effect  arises  out  of  points  and  gleams,  but 
these  points  and  gleams  coalesce  and  make 
the  whole. 

We  are  appealing  now  to  subtle  but  very 
real  facts  of  experience.  The  wonderful 
thing  in  this  kind  of  experience  is,  that  there 
is  an  element  of  the  infinite  in  that  which 
moves  our  love.  What  else  is  the  meaning 
of  the  look  in  the  eye  that  stirs  the  depths 
of  our  souls,  of  the  thrill  in  the  touch  of  a 
hand  at  which  all  that  is  best  in  us  answers 
in  loyalty?  It  is  as  if  we  looked  through 
the  eyes  of  a  good  man  or  woman  into  the 
infinite  depths  of  personality.  It  is  as  if  we 
felt  in  the  warmth  of  the  true  man's  hand 
the  touch  of  an  infinite  faithfulness.  In  all 
true  love,  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  so  far  from 
being  an  objection  and  difficulty,  is  the  sub- 
stantial groundwork  upon  which  love  pro- 
ceeds. We  never  yet  have  wholly  loved 


68      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

any  one,  parent  or  friend,  husband  or  wife 
or  child,  hero  or  saint,  unless  we  believe 
that  this  love  which  meets  ours  is  without 
boundaries,  would  go  to  all  lengths  for  our 
sakes,  is  indeed  refreshed  from  the  infinite 
sources.  We  cannot  love  the  mere  finite 
body  or  the  outward  show  of  things.  Our 
own  love  too  is  beyond  measure  or  price. 
Our  love  goes  behind  the  show  and  surface 
to  the  invisible  reality,  seeking  the  real  and 
the  infinite.  This  is  the  nature  of  love  — 
the  most  mysterious  and  indefinable  of  all 
realities. 

Our  subject  was  the  love  of  God.  We 
are  not  wandering  from  it.  We  are  at 
the  heart  of  our  subject.  The  nature  of 
love  is  that  it  stirs  at  every  expression  of 
goodness.  We  love  our  friends  at  every 
glimpse  which  we  catch  of  their  lovable 
nature.  Words,  tears,  smiles,  beautiful 
deeds  reveal  the  unseen  depths  of  their 
friendliness.  Through  what  we  see,  we  love 
and  believe  in  what  we  cannot  see.  So  we 
love  God,  for  all  love  is  one.  We  love  him 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   LOVE   GOD.  69 

through  every  expression  of  goodness  in 
the  universe.  To  adore,  admire,  and  love 
the  beauty  of  goodness  is  natural  to  us. 
We,  being  of  the  nature  of  spirit  ourselves, 
love  spirit  wherever  it  shines  and  gleams. 

There  are  hours  when  we  come  very  close 
to  this  instinctive  love  in  the  presence  of 
nature.  There  are  summer  days  when  the 
smile  of  God  seems  to  be  over  the  sea. 
There  are  winter  nights  when  every  crystal 
of  the  snowfields  reflects  the  moonlight,  and 
the  aurora  dances  in  the  clear  sky.  Thoughts 
of  solemn,  restful  joy  rise  in  us  at  this 
beauty  of  the  world.  We  love  that  for 
which  it  stands. 

Little  children  and  coarse  men  in  the  nar- 
row alleys  of  the  city  love  the  flowers  in  the 
tiny  window  gardens.  What  is  it  that  they 
love?  It  is  an  expression  of  the  infinite 
beauty.  The  story  is  told  of  soldiers  in  the 
civil  war  who  found  a  motherless  baby,  and 
tended  him,  and  adopted  him  into  their  com- 
pany, and  would  have  laid  down  their  lives 
for  him.  What  did  they  see  in  the  baby's 


70      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

face  ?  Was  it  only  the  flesh  and  the  help- 
lessness ?  No  ;  the  child  was  the  symbol  of 
innocence,  beauty,  tenderness,  humanity. 
He  reminded  the  rough  men  of  their  own 
childhood,  of  their  homes,  of  their  mothers, 
of  unseen  goodness.  Loving  the  baby, 
were  they  not  truly  loving  a  manifestation 
of  God? 

A  good  woman  goes  to  live  in  the  wildest 
mining-camp.  What  is  it  in  her  that  the 
men  respect,  so  that  the  camp  is  less  brutal 
for  her  presence  ?  Is  it  not  that  in  a  good 
and  pure  woman's  presence  there  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  eternal  goodness  ?  Men  love 
genuine  goodness  whenever  it  fairly  shines 
into  their  faces. 

The  story  is  told  of  the  famous  Elizabeth 
Frye  that  when  she  first  asked  permission 
to  speak  to  the  brutalized  prisoners  at  High- 
gate  the  authorities  did  not  dare  to  permit 
her  to  go  without  an  escort.  But  when  she 
insisted  that  she  must  go  alone  her  friendly 
manner  and  the  tone  of  her  voice  quieted 
every  wicked  soul.  These  degraded  people 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  LOVE   GOD.  71 

did  not  love  men,  for  men  seemed  to  them 
selfish  and  cruel,  but  they  loved  God  as  soon 
as  they  caught  sight  of  a  sign  of  his  reality. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  Sikh  soldier,  who 
alone  out  of  a  British  garrison  escaped  mas- 
sacre, and,  wounded  almost  to  death,  floated 
all  day  in  a  boat  under  the  broiling  sun, 
bearing  the  news  of  the  disaster  so  as  to 
warn  his  comrades  in  the  next  fort  down  the 
river.  His  stout  will  to  save  his  friends 
kept  him  alive  till  he  had  done  his  errand. 
We  who  have  only  heard  the  story  love 
such  a  man  as  this.  We  do  not  see  the 
heroic  man,  but  we  love  the  unseen  Life 
which  tells  us  another  story  of  itself. 

We  read  of  brave  men  venturing  their 
lives  to  rescue  shipwrecked  crews  and  we 
instinctively  love  and  admire  them.  We  do 
not  love  them  because  we  are  commanded  to 
love.  We  love  because  love  is  the  law  of 
our  natures.  Thus  crystals  and  gems,  flow- 
ers and  stars,  are  a  sign  and  expression  of 
the  reality  and  nature  of  God.  But  the 
heroes  and  saints  especially  stand  for  his 


72      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

goodness.  They  all  show  together  what 
spirit  is.  There  is  a  sort  of  irresistible 
affinity  among  them,  which  everywhere 
draws  spirit  to  spirit  and  constitutes  the 
divine  unity. 

What  now  is  the  time-honored  story  of 
Jesus  ?  Men  may  say  that  they  care  nothing 
for  religion ;  they  think  that  they  deny  God 
and  are  infidels.  They  do  not  love  their 
fellows  as  themselves;  they  even  harbor 
hate  and  bitterness  in  their  hearts.  But  tell 
them  the  simple  story  of  a  carpenter's  son, 
who  cared  nothing  for  wealth  or  fame  or 
anything  that  he  could  get,  and  only  cared 
to  be  true,  and  walked  the  earth  in  friend- 
liness to  every  one,  and  died  as  he  had 
lived  without  a  curse  or  a  murmur;  make 
this  life  real  to  men,  and  who  does  not  give 
him  his  love?  We  all  say,  God  send  us 
men  like  that ! 

Does  any  one  still  say :  "  This  love  is  only 
the  love  of  men  like  ourselves  "  ?  No !  It  is 
the  pure  love  of  God.  The  little  child,  the 
pure  woman  in  the  mining-camp,  Mrs.  Frye 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO  LOVE   GOD.  73 

in  the  prison,  the  brave  life-savers,  sailors, 
and  soldiers,  the  great  fathers  of  our  country, 
Jesus  teaching  the  people  or  dying  on  the 
cross, —  these  lovable  men  and  women  did  not 
make  themselves.  They  are  points  of  light, 
gleams  in  our  world  of  the  ineffable  glory, — 
in  one  word,  children  of  God.  Why  do  we 
love  them  except  because  they  show  us  what 
God  is  ?  They  and  he  are  of  one  nature. 
The  divine  Life  surely  is  in  and  behind 
all  beautiful  things.  All  goodness  reveals 
him.  Loving  the  good  wherever  we  see  it, 
we  love  God. 

The  ancient  word  is,  "  The  pure  in  heart 
shall  see  God."  Does  it  mean  that  in  some 
other  sphere  they  shall  look  011  a  great  white 
throne  and  on  the  face  of  one  sitting  there? 
No!  It  means  that  God  is  here  and  now, 
that  his  light  is  about  us,  that  revelations 
and  manifestations  and  incarnations  of  his 
goodness  are  abroad  in  his  universe,  that 
whoever  keeps  his  heart  clean,  travel  where 
he  may  through  the  universe,  shall  discover 
his  goodness  shining  by  day  and  blazing  by 


74      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

night.  To  the  pure  in  heart  the  message  of 
the  goodness  of  God  is  continual. 

Every  true  parent  knows  that  these  things 
are  so.  Whoever  loves  the  child  in  fact 
loves  the  parent.  The  child  goes  across  the 
world  to  live  in  China  or  India.  Men  love 
him  who  never  saw  the  father's  face.  Never- 
theless, as  sure  as  the  son  is  like  the  father 
in  nature,  the  love  for  the  one  is  the  same  as 
the  love  for  the  other.  The  people  who  love 
the  son  would  love  the  father  as  soon  as  they 
saw  him.  Yes !  They  have  seen  him  al- 
ready in  the  person  of  his  child. 

The  everlasting  question  of  evil  arises. 
Here  is  a  child's  life ;  it  is  full  of  untamed 
passion  ;  it  blazes  up  in  disheartening  out- 
bursts of  self  will.  It  is,  indeed,  the  raw 
material  of  personality.  Does  the  mother 
love  the  child  any  the  less  because  he  is  only 
a  child?  So  the  ugliness,  the  immaturity, 
the  unhappiness,  the  sins  of  the  world,  as  of 
the  child,  prove  what  ?  They  simply  testify 
that  spirit,  not  in  its  limitations,  but  in  its 
completeness  and  fullness  of  life,  is  the  one 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  LOVE  GOD.  75 

reality  without  which  the  growing  world, 
like  the  growing  child,  can  never  be  sat- 
isfied. We  who  cannot  be  content  with  a 
mere  part  or  a  fragment  of  the  life  of  God, 
are  made  to  long  for  gleams  and  revelations 
of  the  love  that  constitutes  the  whole. 

Thus  the  fact  of  suffering,  rightly  under- 
stood, proclaims  an  essential  hunger  for 
perfectness,  that  is,  for  spirit,  for  God. 
Wherever  our  spirits,  akin  to  God,  catch 
sight  of  his  goodness,  we  love  him,  being 
satisfied.  Wherever  we  fail  to  see  him  we 
suffer  need.  It  is  surely  a  spiritual  universe 
in  which  this  happens. 

I  have  said  that  the  most  precious  thing  in 
the  world  is  the  manifestation  of  spirit,  as 
goodness.  But  who  ever  loved  goodness 
less  for  the  fact  that  it  shines  out  of  scenes 
of  toil,  hardship,  or  even  suffering  ?  The 
Christ  story  is  eternal.  It  is  always  being 
reenacted.  It  is  in  every  home  where  love 
is.  Grant  that  this  is  a  world  where  toil  and 
pain  are.  The  truth  is  that  every  soul  who 
loves  goodness  at  all,  loves  goodness  the 


76      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

more,  and  not  the  less,  that  it  can  conquer 
pain  and  defy  death.  What  devil's  advocate 
has  any  fault  to  find  with  a  world  in  which 
every  kind  of  material  is  put  together  so 
as  to  show  forth  goodness,  and  actually  to 
compel  us  to  love  goodness  as  we  love 
nothing  else? 

"  Then  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rougli ; 
Each  sting  that  bids  not  sit  nor  stand,  but  go !  " 

There  is  a  final  question  which  presses. 
If  we  are  spirit  ourselves,  if  we  love  God 
by  nature,  why  should  any  one  ever  need  to 
compel  love  into  the  harsh  form  of  a  law  or 
make  a  commandment  of  it?  It  is  such 
a  law  as  breathing  is  for  the  body.  We 
cannot  live  without  breathing.  But  when 
any  one  merely  says,  "  You  must  breathe," 
he  does  not  understand  the  vital  emphasis 
of  the  law  of  breath.  Even  the  dying  man 
still  breathes,  not  being  able  to  keep  the  air 
away.  The  real  emphasis  is  that  we  must 
breathe  fully,  till  every  lung  cell  in  our  body 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO  LOVE   GOD.  77 

is  satisfied,  and  every  drop  of  our  blood  tin- 
gles with  oxygen.  So  likewise,  we  must 
love  God,  not  merely  when  goodness  is 
forced  upon  us,  and  we  cannot  help  loving 
it,  but  as  the  old  verse  says,  "  With  all  our 
heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength." 

The  child  loves  his  mother ;  this  is  his 
nature.  The  fault  that  we  find  with  him  is 
that  his  love  is  inconstant.  It  is  merely  an 
emotion ;  it  is  not  yet  related  to  thought, 
will,  design.  It  lets  him  disobey ;  it  even 
lets  him  break  his  mother's  heart.  We  de- 
mand that  the  child's  love  shall  grow  and 
possess  his  nature,  and  become  as  constant 
as  the  stars.  Else,  without  earnestness  and 
purpose,  no  woman  can  ever  rest  her  heart 
upon  him,  no  child  of  his  can  ever  trust 
him. 

So  we  say  of  the  universal  love  that  binds 
us  to  God.  Every  one  has  the  beginning  of 
it.  But  it  wants  constancy  and  fixedness. 
With  multitudes  of  people  Avho  call  them- 
selves "  Christians  "  it  is  a  vague  emotion. 
Where  is  the  constant  will,  set  on  righteous- 


78      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

ness  ?  Where  is  the  quick  mind,  keen  to 
find  God  everywhere  ?  Where  is  the  warm, 
loyal  sympathy  rushing  to  helpful  deeds? 
Where  is  the  mighty  moral  standard,  trying 
all  conduct  by  the  holy  ideals  ?  Where  are 
the  fruits  of  the  spirit  —  love,  joy,  peace, 
and  the  rest? 

The  material  that  goes  into  the  making  of 
glass  is  dull  opaque  sand.  When  the  light 
happens  to  fall  upon  the  tiny  surfaces  of  the 
sand  it  is  reflected  back  as  if  light  and  the 
sand  already  had  a  sort  of  natural  affinity  for 
each  other.  Mix  the  sand  now  with  other 
elements  and  then  fuse  it  at  a  white  heat, 
and  the  opaqueness  passes  out  of  it;  it 
henceforth  becomes  possessed  with  the  light, 
transparent  to  its  rays,  a  tiling  of  beauty  for- 
ever. So  the  life  of  man,  seen  in  the  mass, 
is  only  so  much  material.  And  yet,  dull  as 
it  looks,  it  has  always  and  by  nature  affinity 
with  goodness.  Stir  it  now  in  the  crucible 
of  experience,  bring  the  elemental  forces 
to  bear  upon  it,  raise  it  to  a  certain  heat  and 
glow,  and  lo !  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  LOVE   GOD.  79 

strength  and  will  pass  over  together  into  the 
eternal  service  of  goodness.  The  life  be- 
comes possessed  with  goodness,  transparent 
to  let  love  flow  through  it,  fixed,  devoted, 
and  luminous.  Thus  spirit  in  man  answers 
to  God.  Its  law  and  life  is  to  love. 


80      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

PRAYER   AND    REASON. 

VISITORS  from  the  east  to  England  and 
America  sometimes  tell  us  that  they  see 
extremely  little  to  remind  them  that  they 
are  among  a  religious  people.  They  do  not 
see  men  at  their  prayers.  The  old  custom 
of  family  worship  is  rarely  found.  The 
ordinary  Sunday  service  at  church,  however 
well  attended,  hardly  indicates  a  very  prayer- 
ful nation.  What-  are  the  English  and 
American  church  members  mostly  interested 
in  ?  Not  in  religion,  but  in  the  eager,  rest- 
less pursuit  of  wealth.  No  doubt  there  is 
very  much  more  genuine  religion  than  any 
superficial  observer  discovers.  The  fact 
remains,  however,  that  the  Protestant  people 
are  passing  through  a  remarkable  transition 
in  their  religious  thought  and  habits.  Mean- 


PRAYER  AND   REASON.  81 

time  the  usages  and  institutions  of  religion 
appear  to  suffer. 

The  old-world  idea  of  prayer  is  familiar. 
There  seemed  to  men  to  be  two  realms,  mys- 
teriously bordering  on  one  another,  —  the 
realm  of  nature  and  the  realm  of  the  super- 
natural. In  one  lay  man's  practical  life  with 
its  labor ;  in  the  other  was  religion.  Natural 
causes  worked  in  the  one;  occult  forces 
of  spirit  worked  in  the  other.  In  medita- 
tion and  prayer,  man,  lifted  out  of  his 
ordinary  life,  might  see  visions  and  dream 
dreams  of  another  world.  By  prayer  man 
in  his  sore  need  might  reach  through  the 
veil  of  mystery  and  take  hold  upon  new 
forces.  The  good  God,  moved  by  prayer, 
would  set  aside  the  visible,  tangible  machin- 
ery of  "  Second  Causes  "  in  order  to  meet 
the  need  of  his  worshippers.  Such  is  the 
childish  conception  of  prayer,  held  still  by 
multitudes,  whose  nurses  and  mothers  have 
taught  them  so.  Cannot  God  do  every- 
thing? they  ask.  Why  may  he  not  be  per- 
suaded to  give  us  what  we  ask  ?  How  can 


82      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

he  love  us  unless  he  is  willing  sometimes 
to  indulge  us  ? 

Nevertheless,  as  soon  as  men  begin  to 
think  straight,  that  is,  to  think  the  thoughts 
of  civilized  men,  the  childish  conception  of 
prayer  fades  away.  We  come  to  adopt  a 
larger  and  more  wonderful  thought  of  our 
world,  and  of  the  magnitude  and  orderly  in- 
terplay of  its  forces.  Here,  for  example,  is 
the  great  ship  crippled  by  storm,  rocked  in 
the  trough  of  the  sea,  rushing  with  its 
freight  of  human  life  to  its  doom.  The 
well-known  conditions  that  keep  a  ship  safe 
in  the  face  of  the  storm  are  wanting.  The 
steering  gear  does  not  act,  the  main  shaft  is 
broken,  the  fires  under  the  boilers  have  gone 
out,  the  iron  plates  are  strained  and  let  in 
the  water.  What  modern  man  really  be- 
lieves, in  the  absence  of  all  the  conditions 
which  constitute  the  safety  of  a  ship,  that 
the  prayers  of  the  whole  nation,  turned  upon 
the  wreck,  would  now  bring  her  into  port, 
or  arrest  the  force  of  the  blizzard  midway  in 
its  course  ? 


PRAYER  AND   REASON.  83 

Down  in  Havana  yellow  fever  was  epi- 
demic. It  lay  about  in  the  foul  streets,  in 
filthy  houses,  and  in  the  stagnant  harbor. 
There  were  certain  well-known,  let  us  say 
divinely  constituted  hygienic  conditions, 
which,  if  observed,  would  give  the  diseased 
city  immunity  from  its  perennial  plague,  and 
save  every  northern  port  from  menace. 
What  modern  man  believes,  as  long  as  the 
Cuban  people  neglected  these  known  hy- 
gienic conditions,  that  prayers  in  all  the 
churches  could  drive  out  the  yellow  fever 
from  Havana  ? 

We  modern  men  would  not  choose,  if  we 
could,  to  live  in  a  world  where  prayer  might 
be  expected  to  work  miracles  for  us.  It 
would  be  a  magician's  world,  and  not  God's 
world.  We  had  rather  face  the  conditions 
of  our  world  like  men,  buy  wisdom  and  pay 
its  splendid  cost,  be  taught  to  construct 
stancher  ships,  and  to  build  more  beautiful 
and  healthful  cities,  than  live  in  an  Alice's 
wonderland  of  haphazard  and  confusion. 
We  cannot  believe  in  any  species  of  magical 


84      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

value  in  prayer.  This  is  not  a  universe  in 
which  men  can  play  fast  and  loose  with  its  in- 
tricate and  far-reaching  conditions  of  order. 

Does  it  follow  that  man  must  cease  to 
pray  ?  Must  he  become  agnostic,  and 
doubt  whether  any  God  exists  who  cares  for 
man,  or  with  whom  man  may  come  into 
communion  ?  It  would  indeed  be  startling 
if  the  grown  man's  thinking,  instead  of 
being  grander  than  the  child's,  had  actually 
to  be  less  significant. 

We  come  face  to  face  with  the  supreme 
and  fundamental  postulate  of  a  thoughtful 
religion.  God  is  Spirit ;  he  is  the  benefi- 
cent life  at  the  heart  of  all  things  ;  he  is 
not  merely  will,  as  even  Schopenhauer  hints, 
but  he  is  good  will.  All  nature  is  his 
parable  or  picture-book  to  carry  his  message. 
All  forces  are  the  expression  of  the  one 
force,  wielded  for  love's  sake.  All  laws  are 
the  lines  in  which  life  sent  from  him,  mani- 
festing him,  moves  on  its  way  of  expanding 
growth. 

At  the  other  pole  of  our  thought  is  man, 


PRAYER  AND  REASON.  85 

also  spirit,  like  God,  with  marvelous  possi- 
bilities wrapped  up  in  him,  as  all  must 
admit:  with  the  spark  of  infinite  aspiration, 
with  a  quenchless  desire  to  serve  and  to 
love,  born  to  hunger  and  thirst  after  right- 
eousness, content  only  with  goodness,  rest- 
less till  he  finds  rest  in  God.  Such  is  man, 
played  upon  and  swayed  by  the  universe 
forces,  confronted  with  its  manifold  picture 
language,  in  actual  touch  with  its  life,  with- 
out which  he  would  perish. 

Why  should  we  not  expect  to  find  actual 
relation  and  communion  between  man  and 
God,  the  universe  life  ?  See  how  reason- 
able, beautiful,  and  satisfying  this  thought 
is.  As  the  man  sends  the  flow  of  his  life 
to  every  little  nerve  and  cell  of  his  body, 
and  gives  his  blood  to  keep  each  tiny  part 
sound  and  well,  so,  only  on  the  vastly 
higher  scale  of  intelligent  consciousness, 
God  gives  of  his  own  life  to  his  children. 

So  much  for  God's  part.  What  shall  we 
say  of  man  ?  What  is  the  attitude  or  the 
mood  in  which  man  shall  be  at  his  best 


86      THE  RELIGION   OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

to  receive,  to  understand  the  message,  to 
draw  on  the  divine  forces,  to  accomplish, 
to  answer  back,  life  to  life  ?  Will  it  make 
no  difference  in  what  attitude  man  stands  ? 

There  is  a  mirror  which,  burnished  and 
turned  toward  the  sun,  receives  and  reflects 
every  ray  of  light  that  its  surface  can  hold. 
Will  it  make  no  difference  whether  or  not 
you  cover  the  mirror  with  dust,  or  turn  it 
away  from  the  sun,  or  even  lock  it  up  hi  a 
dark  drawer  ? 

There  is  a  great  dynamo  down  in  the 
power  house.  The  inexhaustible  forces  are 
behind  it,  filling  it  with  electrical  energy. 
Great  wires  carry  the  power  through  your 
street.  Will  it  make  no  difference  whether 
or  not  the  electric  lamp  that  stands  on  your 
table  is  adjusted  to  the  forces  playing  so 
near  it?  It  is  necessary  to  make  the  connec- 
tion with  the  great  wire  in  the  street,  and 
to  turn  on  the  power.  So  we  say  with  the 
life  of  man.  There  is  a  certain  moral  and 
spiritual  adjustment,  the  conditions  of  which 
are  easily  understood,  which  if  observed, 


PRAYER  AND   REASON.  87 

put  the  man  at  his  best,  that  is,  in  touch 
with  the  forces  of  God. 

One  of  the  conditions  of  the  adjustment 
of  which  we  speak  is  intelligence.  The 
mirror  must  be  burnished.  The  man's  eyes, 
cleared  of  prejudice,  must  be  open  to  the 
facts.  Another  condition  is  modesty.  The 
man  at  his  best  must  be  free  of  conceit  and 
egotism.  Is  it  not  in  the  proverbs  of  every 
people  that  pride  goes  before  a  fall  ?  Again, 
a  man  must  be  obedient ;  a  man  at  his  best 
always  purposes  to  do  whatever  duty  com- 
mands. The  greatest  condition  of  all  is 
good-mil,  unselfishness,  love.  Stir  us  with 
a  glow  of  sympathy,  bring  us  for  even  an 
hour  into  line  with  the  noble  and  the  disin- 
terested, and  we  stand  here  at  our  best,  face 
to  face  with  God. 

Combine  now  the  fine  bul;  simple  condi- 
tions of  spiritual  adjustment  —  a  reasonable 
intelligence,  modesty  or  a  reverent  uplook, 
the  obedient  will,  and  the  will  to  do  good 
—  and  see  what  you  have  done  with  a  man 
thus  adjusted  in  spirit.  The  mirror  now 


88      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

takes  up  and  gives  back  all  the  sun's  rays. 
The  electric  forces  of  the  universe  blaze 
through  the  little  lamp  upon  your  table. 
The  man  in  this  wholly  healthful  and 
natural  state  thinks  at  his  best,  counsels 
most  wisely,  acts  with  his  highest  efficiency, 
is  most  at  rest  within  himself  and  yet  most 
alive.  Spirit,  the  life  of  God,  is  in  him  and 
through  him.  "  As  the  hand  is  to  the  man," 
to  use  a  quaint  expression  of  an  old  writer, 
so  now  the  man  is  to  God.  This  is  prayer ; 
this  is  communion.  The  man  is  where  the 
forces  of  the  universe  meet.  They  flow  in 
upon  him  ;  they  flow  through  him  and  be- 
yond him,  giving  life  as  they  flow.  Here  is 
perfect  circulation  of  the  divine  life.  Man 
has  only  to  keep  open  the  flow,  to  receive 
freely  of  God's  inspiration,  to  pass  on  what- 
ever is  good  in  thought  or  impulse,  and 
to  translate  all  into  good  words  and  deeds. 
The  artless,  prattling  child  thinks  of  God 
after  a  child's  fashion  and  prays  like  a  child. 
It  must  be  different  with  the  grown  man. 
To  cooperate  with  the  divine  forces,  with 


PRAYER   AND   REASON.  89 

the  divine  thought,  with  the  divine  love,  is 
the  man's  conception  of  prayer.  Prattling 
has  now  grown  to  become  fellowship.  John 
Fiske  or  Maeterlinck  will  teach  you  this  as 
well  or  better  than  Fenelon  or  St.  Augus- 
tine. 

We  are  dealing  here  with  well  observed 
facts.  We  are  not  trying  in  prayer  to  get 
away  from  our  present  life  into  a  super- 
natural realm.  We  are  in  the  realm  of  law 
and  nature,  albeit  of  divine  nature  through- 
out. We  appeal  to  familiar  experience. 
Who  are  the  men  who  have  lived  the  largest 
and  most  effective  lives,  have  wrought  right- 
eousness, brought  in  civilization,  and  set  the 
ideals  of  religion  ?  Who  have  been  the  great 
inventors,  artists,  poets,  and  patriots  ?  What 
was  the  secret  of  their  inspiration  and  power  ? 
Have  they  ever  originated  an  idea  or  created 
a  principle?  Have  they  not  rather  simply 
stood  where  the  divine  power  and  wisdom 
flowed,  and  listened  and  heeded  and  then 
spoken,  acted,  accomplished,  reflected  the 
God-given  light  ? 


90      THE  RELIGION   OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

When  certain  ministers  came  to  Lincoln 
and  wanted  prayers  offered  that  God  would 
favor  "  our  side  "  in  the  war,  he  was  not  con- 
cerned, he  replied,  that  God  should  take  our 
side.  What  he  wanted  was  to  find  and  take 
God's  side.  The  children  think  to  bend 
God's  will  to  their  own.  The  grown  man, 
like  Lincoln,  seeks  only  to  adjust  his  will 
to  God's  will.  He  is  thus  where  the  forces 
of  the  universe  move  to  his  service. 

Jesus'  life  is  typical  here.  Did  he  teach 
with  authority?  Did  his  life  glow  with 
sympathy  ?  Did  his  love  go  out  to  conquer 
the  world  ?  Then  this  was  because  of  his 
attitude,  sane,  normal,  and  vital.  He  did 
not  need  to  go  out  of  the  world  into  another 
region  in  order  to  pray.  He  lived  the  pray- 
erful life  wherever  he  was,  as  if  in  the  pres- 
ence of  God.  He  might  truly  have  said 
with  one  of  our  modern  singers  : 

"  My  heart  i8  resting,  O  my  God ! 

I  will  give  thanks  and  sing ; 
My  heart  is  at  the  secret  source 
Of  every  precious  thing." 


PRATER  AND   REASON.  91 

The  law  of  prayer  underlies  conscious- 
ness. The  adjustment  of  which  we  speak 
may  exist,  and  often  does  exist,  without  the 
consciousness  of  effort,  and  without  naming 
the  fact  prayer.  As  health  may  run  in  the 
well  body,  so  the  power  and  the  life  of  God 
may  move  in  the  loving  will  without  the 
need  that  the  man  shall  say  to  himself  "  I 
am  well,"  or  "  I  have  God's  peace  in  my 
soul." 

But  it  is  the  glory  of  man  that  his  life 
rises  to  moments  of  joyous  consciousness, 
when  he  not  only  lives  but  also  knows  that 
he  lives.  These  are  the  times  when  here  and 
now  we  have  a  sense  of  being  immortal.  In 
the  visions  of  intelligence,  in  the  performance 
of  duties,  when  we  love  with  all  our  hearts, 
we  share  the  life  of  God. 

Whose  experience  does  not  answer  to 
these  facts  ?  Here  is  the  busy  man  of  af- 
faire, tired  of  the  cares,  the  toil,  the  strain  of 
the  day's  work.  It  is  night,  and  he  is  about 
to  give  himself  to  rest.  What  if  he  pauses 
a  few  moments  before  he  lies  down  ?  What 


92      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

if  he  brings  his  mind  into  fresh  adjustment 
with  his  love  and  his  aspirations  ?  He  puts 
aside  his  egotism  and  his  selfishness,  as  a 
little  child  in  its  mother's  arms  puts  away  its 
tears.  His  sympathies  move  in  tenderness  for 
absent  friends.  His  thoughts  in  the  silence 
go  out  through  the  starlit  spaces.  His  mind 
catches  the  sense  of  the  vaster  life  in  which 
all  things  dear  to  him  are  held  together.  In 
this  quest  of  spirit  his  vision  is  quickened ; 
he  sees  how  to  set  right  the  errors  or  mis- 
takes of  the  day.  He  catches  bright  thoughts 
of  what  he  may  do  for  the  sake  of  his  home, 
his  children,  his  friends,  his  city.  He  is 
now  at  the  source  of  power.  He  is  close, 
also,  not  merely  to  sounder  rest  of  body,  but 
to  profounder  rest  of  mind,  when  at  last 
he  is  able  to  say : 

"  In  peace  I  will  both  lay  me  down  and  sleep, 
For  Thou,  Lord,  alone  makest  me  dwell  in  safety." 

The  man  rises  in  the  morning  to  the  work 
of  a  human  being,  yet  in  reality  to  the  work 
of  a  son  of  God.  Shall  he  rush,  like  a 


PRATER  AND   REASON.  93 

whipped  slave,  to  his  tasks  ?  Let  him  give 
himself  a  moment  of  pause,  worthy  of  a 
man,  before  he  takes  up  his  tasks.  Let  him 
lift  his  eyes  to  the  hills  and  see  the  end  and 
aim  of  his  march  ;  let  him  at  least  say :  "  Thy 
will  be  done,"  before  he  goes  forth.  Let 
the  mother  and  housekeeper  take  on  her 
lips  the  lines  of  a  hymn,  or  the  refrain  of  a 
psalm,  to  recur  at  times  through  the  day  to 
keep  her  in  mind  of  the  faith,  the  hope,  and 
the  love  with  which  her  fingers  move  in  ac- 
cord. Such  a  beginning  of  the  day  is  to 
start  from  the  heights ;  it  binds  us  to  God 
and  attunes  body  and  mind  to  the  pitch  of 
efficient  and  harmonious  use.  But  this  ad- 
justment of  the  life  to  its  work,  as  if  in  the 
presence  of  the  Almighty,  this  consecration 
of  ourselves  to  our  duty  and  our  love, 
whether  in  simple  rude  words  of  our  own 
or  in  the  beautiful  and  hallowed  passages  of 
great  souls  of  other  times,  is  prayer.  It  is 
the  prayer  of  the  grown  and  civilized  man 
whispering,  "  Thy  Kingdom  come,"  as  he 
engages  in  each  new  enterprise  of  that 


94      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

higher  civilization  to  which  he  has  devoted 
his  life. 

Man  carries  within  himself  the  finest  of  all 
tools  or  instruments.  It  is  the  temper  or 
spirit  with  which  he  essays  his  various  tasks. 
Send  him  forth  to  his  work  in  any  mood  of 
ill  temper;  send  him  among  his  fellows 
sour,  embittered,  anxious,  or  angry,  and  he 
will  as  certainly  damage  his  work  as  if  the 
cabinet  maker  were  to  use  dull  and  broken 
tools  or  as  if  the  violinist  were  to  play  out 
of  tune. 

The  time  draws  near  when  these  things 
must  be  recognized  by  every  intelligent 
observer.  Prayer  is  a  profound  function  of 
life.  Men  cannot  get  on  without  it  and  do 
their  full  stent  of  work.  The  time  is 
coming  when  the  employer  or  the  super- 
intendent of  labor  cannot  afford  to  try  to 
handle  hundreds  of  men  except  as  the  spirit 
of  prayer,  quiet  and  friendly,  teaches  him. 
The  time  is  coming  when  no  teacher  will 
venture  to  go  into  a  school-room  without 
having  first  caught  sight  of  the  divine  stand- 


PRATER  AND   REASON.  95 

ards  which  govern  education.  No  physician 
will  enter  a  sick-room  without  being  sure 
that  he  carries  the  restful  and  hopeful  pres- 
ence which  true  prayer  creates.  No  parent 
will  dare  to  touch  the  mystery  of  child-life, 
without  the  recognition,  sweet  and  solemn, 
that  his  child  and  he  are  both  children  of 
God.  Statesmen  and  public  men  must  see 
by  and  by  that  prayer  clarifies  the  judgment 
and  shows  the  way  of  human  progress  and 
true  political  expediency.  It  will  not  be 
ministers  alone  who  must  pray.  Who 
desires  to  think,  act,  live,  and  love,  at  his 
best?  He  must  pray.  For  only  thus  can 
he  keep  in  accord  with  the  mainspring  of 
life. 

It  is  obvious  that  we  are  close  to  the  open 
secret  of  much  that  has  gone  under  various 
strange  and  occult  names,  touching  the  rein- 
vigoration  of  the  bodily  health.  No  one  can 
reasonably  question  the  fact  that  the  body 
is  subtly  but  surely  bound  up,  for  better  for 
worse,  in  sickness  and  hi  health,  with  a 
man's  varying  conditions  and  moods  of  con- 


96      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

sciousness.  Is  the  man  disappointed,  wor- 
ried, vexed,  angered,  brought  to  shame  and 
confusion  ?  All  this  reacts  upon  the  body. 
Countless  morbid  tendencies  flow  from  a 
man's  baffled  egotism  and  selfishness,  wear- 
ing on  the  nerves,  impairing  the  assimilation 
of  food.  Passion,  greed,  appetite,  and  lust 
prey  on  the  health.  Reverse  now  all  these 
morbid  tendencies,  change  the  ill  temper  to 
good  temper,  fear  to  hope,  disappointment 
and  shame  to  satisfaction,  self-will  to  love, 
egotism  to  the  sight  of  the  visions  of  good- 
ness, and  the  beauty  of  the  inward  change 
must  often  shine  through,  and,  as  Mr.  Fiske 
has  said,  change  and  accelerate  "  the  rhythm 
of  nutrition."  A  well  body  naturally  tends 
to  clothe  a  sane  and  happy  spirit.  This 
principle  needs  no  occult  names  or  practises. 
There  is  no  need  to  deny  facts,  or  set  aside 
conditions,  or  turn  the  orderly  universe  into 
unreality. 

Does  any  one  now  care  to  ask  the  question 
whether  prayer  is  answered  ?  If  the  world 
is  once  interpreted  into  terms  of  thought, 


PRATER  AND   REASON.  97 

love,  will,  spirit,  the  whole  vast  system  is 
a  mode  of  motion  from  God  to  man  and 
from  man  to  God.  What  does  man,  God's 
child,  really  need?  He  needs  experience, 
intelligence,  wisdom,  spur  and  incitement 
to  urge  him  to  grow,  power  to  draw  on  and 
use  the  proof  of  God's  love.  Whatever 
man  really  needs,  the  universe  is  at  hand  to 
impart.  In  the  mood  of  prayer  this  proves 
true.  In  this  mood  man  at  his  best  opens  his 
heart  to  receive.  In  this  mood  God  takes 
man  to  himself  and  unfolds  more  and  more 
the  treasures  of  his  beauty  and  goodness.  To 
the  man  who  looks  out  on  the  world  in  this 
mood,  the  universe  answers  back  in  words 
of  divineness.  What  soul  ever  tried  the 
experiment  and  found  it  to  fail?  At  our 
best,  obedient,  modest,  willing,  loving,  all 
things  speak  to  us  of  God,  sorrows  and  joys, 
laws  and  mysteries,  life  and  death  also. 


98      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

WHAT   FREEDOM   IS. 

Is  it  true  that  men  are  born  free  ?  The 
fact  is  that  freedom  is  the  highest  attain- 
ment which  a  man  can  reach.  I  wish  in 
this  chapter  to  show  how  high,  rare,  pre- 
cious, and  beautiful  true  human  freedom  is. 
I  wish  to  stir  my  readers  to  a  new  desire  for 
it,  to  bring  about  a  healthy  discontent  with 
life  that  falls  short  of  freedom. 

Look  at  men  as  they  pass  in  the  streets  of 
your  city.  The  majority  of  grown  men  and 
women  are  not  free.  They  live  under  con- 
straint ;  they  carry  burdens  of  anxiety ;  they 
are  not  doing  what  they  wish ;  they  unwill- 
ingly serve  the  will  of  others.  They  are 
only  legally  free.  How  many  in  the  crowd 
are  free  indeed.  Here  and  there,  however, 
is  a  man  who  thinks,  acts,  loves,  lives,  not  as 
if  compelled  from  without,  not  as  a  machine, 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  99 

an  automaton,  or  a  bondman,  but  with  inward 
ease,  contentment,  willingness,  and  joy.  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  and  Epictetus,  the  great  Stoics, 
are  full  of  this  freedom.  Emerson  is  a  mas- 
ter in  it.  Jesus  sings  it  in  the  Beatitudes. 
That  fine  old  English  gentleman  Sir  Henry 
Wotton  chants  it  to  us  : 

"  How  happy  is  he  born  or  taught, 

Who  serveth  not  another's  will ; 
Whose  armor  is  his  honest  thought, 
And  simple  truth  his  utmost  skill." 

Average  men  rise  to  this  height  almost  as 
if  by  accident,  only  in  their  noblest  moments. 

The  fact  is  that  freedom,  so  far  from  being 
common  and  cheap,  is  uncommon  and  costly ; 
it  belongs  to  the  period  of  maturity  —  not 
to  boys,  but  to  grown  men.  The  world  is 
full  of  parables  am}  object  lessons  to  show 
this.  Here,  for  example,  is  a  new  invention ; 
we  will  suppose  that  it  is  the  first  typewriter. 
It  has  in  it  already  every  essential  principle. 
Its  parts  are  fairly  well  made  and  put  to- 
gether. What  prevents  our  full  trust  and 
satisfaction  in  it  ?  Why  will  it  not  immedi- 


100     THE  RELIGION  OP  A    GENTLEMAN. 

ately  be  profitable  to  use?  It  still  wants 
freedom  of  motion  ;  the  parts  are  stiff ;  there 
are  points  of  friction ;  it  is  clumsy,  compli- 
cated, and  noisy  ;  there  is  not  yet  any  ease 
and  joy  in  working  it.  It  is  a  great  step 
upward  between  this  first  awkward  machine 
and  the  latest  noiseless  instrument  that  the 
operator  can  work  all  day  without  a  moment 
of  annoyance  ! 

Watch  the  child  now  as  he  learns  to  walk, 
to  skate,  to  dance,  to  ride  horseback.  The 
child  knows  how  to  produce  every  motion 
before  he  has  got  freedom  in  the  command 
of  his  motions.  He  may  have  heard  every 
rule  in  his  arithmetic,  or  committed  the  rules 
to  memory,  before  he  has  yet  learned  free- 
dom, that  is,  ease  and  joy  in  working  out 
his  problems  in  fractions  or  interest.  It  is  a 
great  step  from  the  constrained  efforts  of  the 
beginner  to  the  art  of  the  master. 

In  the  old-fashioned  industrial  system  they 
recognized  the  period  of  transition  from  mere 
apprenticeship  to  assured  mastership.  When 
the  youth  had  finished  his  discipline  he  did 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  101 

not  yet  become  a  master.  He  must  first  be 
a  journeyman.  They  knew  that  to  learn 
the  rules  and  motions  of  a  trade  did  not  give 
ease,  joy,  or  freedom  in  it.  Not  every 
master  in  name,  indeed,  was  a  real  master. 
The  men  who  still  went  on  doing  slovenly, 
inartistic,  clumsy  work,  or  who  had  no  joy 
in  their  work,  were  never  masters. 

Thus  in  every  province  of  life  the  novice 
lacks  freedom ;  up  to  the  last  stages  of  ap- 
prenticeship he  is  conscious  of  more  or  less 
resistance,  friction,  and  frustration.  Free- 
dom means  mastery,  ease,  joy,  and  satisfac- 
tion. With  each  new  motion  the  apprentice 
acquires  freedom  in  new  provinces  of  his 
work.  The  master  holds  a  free  hand  every- 
where. There  is  nothing  in  the  range  of 
his  trade  or  art  impossible  to  him. 

Moral  freedom,  or  freedom  of  the  soul, 
follows  the  same  law.  It  is  the  mastery  of 
the  whole  of  life ;  it  is  ease,  contentment,  sat- 
isfaction, sometimes  joy,  at  all  times  peace, 
under  whatever  circumstances.  Nothing 
can  baffle  or  overwhelm  the  free  soul ; 


102     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

nothing  can  defeat  him ;  nothing  in  all  the 
range  of  duty  is  impossible.  Whatever  the 
Master  of  life  bids  him  do  is  precisely  that 
which  he  at  that  moment  believes  is  the 
most  desirable  thing  to  be  done.  Neither 
does  he  think  anything  else  practicable.  I 
am  aware  that  this  is  a  great  claim,  but  true 
and  complete  freedom  is  nothing  less  than 
this. 

We  wish  now  to  know  what  is  the  secret 
of  freedom.  What  does  any  one  need  in 
order  to  emerge  from  the  lower  level  of  con- 
straint and  apprenticeship  into  the  freedom 
of  the  masters  ?  We  must  grant  in  the  first 
place  that  there  is  need  everywhere  of  prac- 
tice. The  young  pupil  thinks  that  he  knows 
his  violin  lesson ;  that  is,  he  can  produce 
tones  and  scramble  through  the  new  piece 
of  music,  but  he  needs  days  and  weeks  of 
practice  before  he  can  be  trusted  to  play 
before  an  audience.  So  likewise  men 
think  that  they  know  the  Golden  Rule 
merely  because  they  can  repeat  it  glibly. 
What  do  they  lack  ?  They  lack  practice  in 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  103 

it.  Must  the  violinist  go  through  the  same 
motion  hundreds  of  times  before  he  has  com- 
plete ease  and  joy  in  the  motions,  and  shall 
the  man  who  can  count  on  his  fingers  the 
instances  in  which  he  has  fairly  tried  the 
venture  of  the  Golden  Rule  imagine  that  he 
already  knows  it  ? 

The  secret  of  freedom,  however,  is  not  in 
practice.  Let  the  young  player  go  on  prac- 
tising all  his  life,  let  him  perform  every 
motion  correctly  a  thousand  times,  and  he 
might  never  enjoy  an  hour  of  freedom  and 
mastery.  The  freedom  of  the  man  is  more 
than  the  freedom  of  the  machine.  When 
the  man  works  his  soul  must  move  as  well  as 
his  muscles ;  there  must  be  joy  and  hearti- 
ness. This  brings  me  to  say  something 
about  the  mystery  of  self-consciousness. 

What  part  does  self-consciousness  play 
in  man's  life?  Is  it  good  or  evil,  a  help 
or  a  hindrance?  The  little  child,  like  the 
animal,  seems  to  get  on  well  enough  for  a 
while  without  any  self -consciousness.  In 
some  respects  the  quiet,  automatic,  imita- 


104     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

tive,  and  instinctive  actions  are  the  most 
perfect. 

How  often  we  wish  that  we  could  be  rid 
of  self -consciousness  !  It  seems  to  be  the 
bane  of  our  work ;  it  handicaps  our  activity ; 
it  makes  us  shy,  uneasy,  and  timid,  or  again 
overbold,  vain,  and  arrogant.  It  provokes 
us  to  ask  what  men  are  saying  about  us,  or 
what  blame  or  reward  we  shall  get  as  the 
result  of  our  effort.  It  exaggerates  the  im- 
portance of  what  we  do,  as  if  we  cried  out  to 
the  world,  "  See  me  and  my  fine  clothes !  " 
Such  are  the  vagaries,  I  might  even  say  the 
diseases,  of  a  self-consciousness  which  has 
become  strained  and  over-sensitive. 

Nevertheless,  self-consciousness  is  our 
glory,  being  a  necessary  process  of  intel- 
lectual growth.  It  is  acute  in  man  because 
he  is  not  an  automaton,  and  he  is  more  than 
an  animal.  It  is  a  part  of  the  price  of  ap- 
prenticeship that  he  has  to  pay  for  all  the 
higher  experiences.  Moreover,  it  has  its  own 
delightful  compensations. 

The    fact   is,    the   natural  movement    of 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  105 

man's  development  with  respect  to  every- 
thing which  he  learns  is  through  a  period  of 
active  and  even  exaggerated  self-conscious- 
ness, not  back  to  unconsciousness,  but  up 
and  onward  to  a  higher  stage  of  conscious 
life.  Thus,  while  the  young  violinist  is 
taking  up  a  new  movement,  he  becomes 
conscious  at  first  of  the  motions  of  his  arm 
and  his  bow,  which  seem  to  be  out  of  rela- 
tion with  what  he  has  learned  before.  But 
as  soon  as  he  has  learned  the  new  motion,  it 
now  becomes  a  part  of  himself  and  takes  its 
harmonious  place  in  his  consciousness.  He 
is  never  again  self-conscious  about  it. 

We  become  real  persons,  with  unity  in  our 
lives,  as  we  assimilate  into  ourselves  all 
manner  of  experiences  and  make  a  symphony 
of  them.  The  new  experience,  or  possible 
lesson,  is  not  at  first  ours ;  it  is  as  yet  out- 
side of  us.  It  even  calls  a  halt  in  our  ac- 
tivity, while  we  survey  it,  and  pass  judg- 
ment upon  it,  and  say  whether  we  like  to 
assimilate  it  or  to  reject  it.  This  period  of 
judgment,  of  caution,  hesitation,  and  experi- 


106     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

ment,  this  pause,  while  the  train  of  life 
seems  to  come  to  a  halt,  is  self-consciousness. 
In  a  normal  life  the  stop  should  be  brief. 

We  are  ready  to  state  a  vital  law.  It  is 
as  important  to  human  life  as  gravitation  is 
to  the  stars,  but  it  is  still  little  understood. 
The  acquisition  of  freedom  depends  upon  it. 
The  law  is  in  whatever  we  do,  in  whatever 
motion  we  make,  in  outward  acts,  and  not  less 
in  every  moral  and  spiritual  effort,  to  let  our- 
selves go  in  the  effort.  The  art  of  swimming 
illustrates  what  we  mean.  Here  is  some 
one  who  practises  the  motions  of  swimming 
for  months,  but  this  will  not  make  him 
a  swimmer.  Something  more  than  practice 
is  needed ;  the  learner  must  give  his  body 
to  the  water ;  he  must  cease  to  ask  whether 
the  water  will  bear  him  up.  Who  has  not 
seen  little  boys  swim  in  the  first  lesson, 
because  they  let  themselves  go,  trusted  the 
water,  and  struck  out,  however  clumsily,  to 
get  to  the  shore  !  Children  learn  a  new  lan- 
guage by  the  same  secret ;  they  let  them- 
selves go ;  they  make  necessary  mistakes  ; 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  107 

they  are  not  afraid  of  being  laughed  at. 
Did  not  Jesus  mean  this  when  lie  said  that 
we  must  become  as  little  children  ?  Children 
let  themselves  go  in  what  they  do.  What 
grace  in  their  movements  !  It  is  not  uncon- 
sciousness that  Jesus  is  teaching.  There 
could  be  no  human  freedom  without  con- 
sciousness. But  Jesus  teaches  the  art  of 
letting  ourselves  go,  as  children  do. 

See  now  how  our  law  works,  for  ex- 
ample, with  respect  to  the  matters  of 
friendship  and  love.  There  is  no  real 
friendship  except  with  those  who  at  least 
sometimes  let  themselves  go  in  their  love. 
What  if  you  are  always  cool  and  reserved  ? 
What  if  you  are  always  counting  the  cost  of 
your  friendship  ?  Will  you  never  open  your 
heart  and  give  your  friendship  utterance? 
While  you  are  still  selfish  in  your  affection, 
while  you  are  timid,  while  egotism  con- 
strains you,  your  friendship  is  yet  in  the 
stage  of  its  apprenticeship.  Be  sure  that 
true  love,  once  having  got  its  growth,  gives 
itself  utterly.  Who  has  never  risen,  at  least 


108     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

for  a  while,  to  this  new  height  of  ease,  joy, 
freedom ! 

The  secret  of  the  art  of  conversation  is 
here.  We  have  sometimes  been  in  the 
company  of  bright  people  where,  however, 
the  conversation  would  not  flow.  Why  was 
this?  It  was  because  every  one  in  the 
circle  was  afraid  of  his  own  acquaintances. 
And  lo !  at  the  appearance  in  the  room  of  a 
single  free  and  merry  soul,  willing  to  let  himself 
go,  never  asking  "  What  will  they  say  of 
me?  "  we  have  seen  all  tongues  unloosed  and 
hearts  unlocked  in  fellowship. 

There  is  a  profound  secret  of  bodily  health 
in  this  highly  spiritual  law.  There  are 
many  persons,  especially  in  well-to-do  and 
quite  sophisticated  communities,  who  are 
always  near  to  or  over  the  line  of  invalid- 
ism.  Without  actual  disease  in  any  bodily 
organ,  they  suffer  the  symptoms  and  pains 
of  innumerable  diseases.  The  trouble  witli 
them  is  that  they  have  become  self-conscious 
with  respect  to  their  bodies  and  their  health ; 
they  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of  a  con- 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  109 

strained  life.  Watch  them  ;  they  are  noting 
their  own  aches  and  pains ;  they  are  fearful 
and  apprehensive  so  as  hardly  to  draw  a  full 
and  free  breath ;  they  feel  their  own  pulse, 
count  the  beating  of  their  hearts,  and  almost 
weigh  their  food.  Sometimes  they  have  for- 
gotten how  to  rest  or  sleep ;  they  will  not 
actually  give  their  bodies  to  the  bed  as 
children  do,  when  they  lie  down,  but  they 
try  to  support  themselves,  as  if  upon  taut 
nerves.  What  wonder  if  the  circulation  of 
the  life  becomes  stagnant  and  real  bodily  dis- 
orders set  in  !  What  wonder,  when  the  life 
does  not  flow  freely,  if  the  nervous  tension 
increases  !  Disease  no  doubt  always  stands 
ready  to  set  in,  as  long  as  men  do  not  live 
rightly. 

There  is  a  simple  gospel  for  this  large 
class  of  suffering  humanity.  It  is  no  less 
curative  for  physical  ills  because  it  is  also 
moral  and  spiritual.  I  will  put  my  word 
in  an  almost  extravagant  form  :  "  Let  your- 
self go ;  give  up  concern  for  your  health ; 
resolve,  as  every  soldier  has  to  resolve,  that 


110     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

you  will  be  willing  to  die,  if  die  you  must. 
But,  then,  resolve  also  to  live  as  if  you 
were  going  on  to  live  forever ;  give  yourself 
up  as  long  as  you  live,  to  live  worthily,  right- 
eously, nobly.  Make  your  body,  such  as  it  is, 
merely  a  tool  to  use,  a  channel  to  convey  and 
communicate  all  the  power  and  life  possible." 

It  is  better  to  miss  certain  excellent  hy- 
gienic conditions,  to  eat  too  little  or  even 
too  much,  to  have  fewer  cubic  feet  of  air 
in  your  sleeping-room  than  the  normal  body 
requires,  to  encounter  draughts  and  be  cold 
on  occasion,  and  yet  to  breathe  freely  as  a 
free  man  should,  without  fear,  constraint, 
or  anxious  thought,  —  yes,  it  is  better  to  be 
the  master  of  a  weak  body  than  the  slave  of  a 
good  one.  Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone. 
A  new  hope  of  any  sort,  a  new  duty,  a  new 
obedience,  often  suffices  to  release  the  slug- 
gish current  of  the  circulation,  to  open  un- 
used cells  in  the  lungs,  to  clear  away  morbid 
imaginings. 

It  has  been  said  that  genius  is  an  infinite 
capacity  for  hard  work  and  taking  pains. 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  Ill 

It  is  rather  an  infinite  capacity  to  let  one's 
self  go  and  give  one's  self  up  to  one's  task. 
Will  clever  artifice  and  the  mathematics 
of  music  ever  move  your  heart?  The  great 
composer  must  put  his  soul  into  his  music 
and  lo!  there  is  melody.  It  is  so  with  the 
poet;  it  is  so  with  the  orator.  There  is  no 
drudgery  in  this  kind  of  work. 

There  is  likewise  a  certain  abandon  of 
soul  in  the  highest  exercise  of  virtue.  It  is 
only  with  the  beginner  that  goodness  seems 
to  be  a  motion  "against  the  grain."  The 
masters  in  virtue,  therefore,  least  need  encour- 
agement or  applause.  Shall  we  praise  Jesus 
for  l>eing  pure  in  heart,  or  single  in  purpose, 
or  for  being  willing  to  give  his  life  for  love's 
sake  ?  Did  men  need  to  encourage  Chaiming 
or  Charles  Darwin  to  speak  the  truth  ?  These 
were  men  who  loved  virtue  and  truth; 
they  had  committed  themselves  to  the  beau- 
tiful ways  of  virtue.  It  had  become  easier 
to  be  true  than  to  be  false,  easier  to  be  just 
than  unjust.  There  is  indeed  no  freedom  of 
truth,  as  long  as  lying  is  a  temptation. 


112     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Would  Bach  or  Beethoven  be  tempted  to 
make  discords?  So  the  lover  of  goodness, 
which  is  the  harmony  of  the  soul,  cannot 
bear  to  do  wrong.  As  Marcus  Aurelius 
writes  :  "  Whatever  any  one  does  or  says,  I 
must  be  emerald  and  keep  my  color." 

We  rise  at  once  to  a  splendid  conception 
of  the  religious  life.  Religion  is  not  to 
practise  certain  motions,  however  excellent; 
it  is  not  to  repeat  good  words  ;  it  is  not 
even  to  admire  or  worship  certain  beautiful 
ideals  ;  its  law  is  to  let  ourselves  utterly  go 
with  the  motion  of  the  good  will  of  God. 
There  are  a  multitude  of  people  who  think 
that  they  have  a  religion,  but  you  would  not 
know  it  by  their  actions  or  their  faces. 
They  are  timid  and  anxious ;  they  suspect 
that  if  they  really  gave  themselves  up  to  do 
justice,  they  might  starve ;  that  if  they  told 
the  truth,  they  would  be  unpopular.  How 
many  professing  "  Christians  "  have  ever 
tried  the  experiment  of  letting  themselves 
go,  and  simply  living  the  life  of  the  children 
of  God  for  a  single  day  ? 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  113 

The  law  of  freedom  connects  itself  with 
the  rational  doctrine  of  prayer.  In  real 
prayer  the  human  spirit  lets  itself  go.  We 
make  in  prayer  the  magnificent  venture  and 
trust  ourselves  to  the  spirit  of  the  universe. 
We  say  in  substance :  "  Show  us  the  truth, 
and  we  will  follow  Avherever  it  leads  ;  tell 
us  the  way  of  our  duty,  and  we  will  march." 
We  say :  "  Let  the  good  will  be  done  ;  we 
are  here  to  be  possessed  with  it,  and  then  to 
do  its  bidding."  In  the  attitude  of  prayer  we 
seem  to  be  here  for  nothing  else  except  to  do 
the  bidding  of  Love.  We  give  ourselves  up 
to  the  care  of  God,  the  innermost  life  and 
will  of  the  universe.  In  prayer  we  enter  the 
realm  of  free  spirit.  The  man  at  the  work- 
bench, in  the  laboratory,  in  the  machine  shop, 
at  the  helm  or  on  the  engine,  in  the  senate 
chamber  or  on  the  public  platform,  once  pos- 
sessed with  the  spirit  of  good  will,  and 
yielding  his  life  to  do  its  behests,  is  at  the 
height  of  his  power,  a  free  man.  Is  not  this 
the  secret,  in  simple  terms,  of  the  wisdom- 
books  of  the  ages  ? 


114     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

In  the  old  days  the  freedom  of  a  city  was 
a  great  boon.  Country  boys,  like  Richard 
Whittington,  came  up  to  London  and 
earned  the  rights  of  free  men.  The  free- 
dom of  the  city  was  conferred  upon  illus- 
trious strangers.  It  opened  doors  otherwise 
closed,  and  cleared  the  way  to  attain  the 
highest  honors.  In  the  United  States  we 
have  established  a  similar  and  very  wonder- 
ful freedom  throughout  more  than  forty 
states,  stretching  across  a  continent.  Wher- 
ever the  citizen  goes,  the  laws  are  his  to 
protect  him ;  the  privileges  of  a  common 
citizenship  are  open  to  him.  In  the  case  of 
certain  eminent  men  we  have  seen  the  free- 
dom of  the  world  extended  to  them.  Where- 
ever  General  Grant  went,  though  a  private 
American  citizen,  he  went  like  a  prince  ; 
all  doors  were  unlocked  for  him.  The  na- 
tions took  him  in  as  a  free  man  of  the  world  ; 
he  had  enemies  nowhere.  Napoleon,  the 
egotist  and  conqueror,  had  no  such  freedom 
as  this.  Thus  good  will,  possessing  a  man, 
constitutes  him  a  citizen  of  the  universe. 


WHAT  FREEDOM  IS.  115 

This  freedom  is  imperishable.  You  may 
lock  such  a  man  up,  as  they  locked  Madame 
Guyon  in  her  dungeon,  and  the  soul  still 
sings: 

"  My  God,  how  full  of  sweet  content 
I  pass  my  years  of  banishment." 

Wherever  this  freeman  goes,  among  what- 
ever people  he  lives,  he  goes  without  fear ; 
he  carries  the  talisman  wherewith  to  open 
all  hearts  and  break  down  barriers ;  he 
moves  in  unison  with  the  guiding  life  of 
God. 


11G     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

WHAT    IT    IS   TO    BE   GOOD. 

THERE  is  one  sense  of  the  word  "good" 
in  which  it  can  only  be  applied  to  God. 
This  was  the  high  sense  which  Jesus  had  in 
mind  when  he  declined  to  be  called  good, 
saying,  "No  one  is  good  bnt  one,  that  is, 
God."  We  have  here  a  thought  of  absolute 
or  perfect  goodness.  Here  is  a  justice  which 
can  never  do  a  wrong,  unswerving  truth 
upon  which  the  universe  depends,  a  love 
that  carries  no  enmity  to  any  soul,  infinitely 
patient,  inexhaustible,  pouring  out  its  sun- 
shine upon  the  evil  and  the  good.  Its  single 
purpose  is  the  welfare  of  all.  We  can  think 
of  nothing  less  than  this  when  we  speak  of 
the  Eternal  Goodness.  This  is  the  ultimate 
reality.  All  forms  of  goodness  are  only 
sparks  and  manifestations  of  this,  without 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  117 

which  the  world  would  be  unintelligible  and 
human  life  would  be  a  vain  dream. 

There  is  no  blame  or  "sin"  if  man  falls 
short  of  this  kind  of  goodness.  He  would 
not  be  man,  that  is,  a  growing  creature,  if  he 
had  attained  to  this  perfectness.  Jesus  would 
have  ceased  to  grow  better,  that  is,  he  would 
have  ceased  to  be  a  real  man,  if  he  could 
ever  have  passed,  once  for  all,  beyond  the 
human  line  where  temptation  lies  in  wait  for 
all  of  us.  We  cannot  conceive  of  man,  even 
at  his  highest,  except  as  one  who  is  still  on  the 
march  upward  to  a  more  constant  and  beau- 
tiful goodness.  Since  the  characteristic  of 
man  is  that  he  has  never  attained  perfect- 
ness,  there  is  surely  no  blame  or  sin  in  this 
fact  of  his  nature. 

There  is  another  sense  in  which  we  com- 
monly use  the  word  "  good."  We  use  it  in 
a  conventional  way  as  opposed  to  the  bad. 
We  use  it  to  describe  law-abiding  and  orderly 
people.  We  use  it  of  the  boys  who  make  no 
trouble  or  mischief  in  school.  We  even  use 
it  of  little  babies  to  mean  that  they  make  us 


118     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

no  trouble.  "  It  is  a  good  baby,"  we  say.  This 
means  nothing  more  than  that  it  is  well  fed 
and  comfortable.  So  the  people  in  every 
community  who  represent  law  and  order 
speak  of  those  who  are  "  respectable "  like 
themselves  as  the  good  citizens. 

Why  is  it  that  the  kind  of  goodness  which 
consists  in  being  orderly,  though  it  is  con- 
venient, useful,  and  necessaiy,  fails  to  stir 
our  hearts  to  any  admiration  ?  One  reason 
is  that  it  does  not  cost  much  to  be  "  good  " 
for  those  who  are  so  born  and  brought  up. 
It  is  easier  to  keep  within  the  laws  than  to 
transgress  them,  as  it  is  easier  to  walk  on  a 
good  road  than  to  walk  through  a  thicket. 

Moreover,  curiously  enough,  it  is  possible 
to  be  "  good "  and  orderly,  never  to  get  a 
"  bad  mark  in  school,"  never  to  have  to  fear 
the  police  or  the  sheriff,  and  yet  to  be  mean, 
narrow,  and  selfish.  The  boy  who  stands  at 
the  head  of  his  class  is  not  therefore  a  brave 
or  generous  fellow.  What  if  his  father 
has  offered  him  the  prize  of  a  gold  watch  for 
being  the  first  scholar?  It  is  for  the  in- 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO   BE   GOOD.  119 

terest  of  most  people  to  obey  the  laws,  and 
to  be  respectable.  They  find  business  credit, 
honors,  and  official  position  in  being  respect- 
able. Why,  indeed,  should  any  intelligent 
person  venture  to  do  wrong  and  lose  his 
respectable  standing?  But  suppose  that 
every  one  could  be  persuaded  to  be  "  good  " 
by  this  shrewd  calculation  of  the  profit  of 
goodness,  who  would  ever  be  satisfied  with 
a  world  full  of  such  cold-blooded  virtue  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  often  prefer  the 
company  of  certain  persons  who  are  not  very 
"  good,"  to  the  company  of  others  who  are 
extremely  orderly  and  proper.  Mothers 
and  teachers  love  their  mischievous  and 
troublesome  boys  as  well  at  least  as  they 
love  the  boys  who  never  need  a  word  of 
blame.  The  popular  heart  responds  to  the 
stories  of  the  Jim  Bludsoes,  of  Kipling's 
heroes  of  the  barracks  and  mess-room,  of  the 
deeds  of  Roosevelt's  Rough  Riders,  of  the 
brave  kindliness  of  Trilby.  I  am  sorry  for 
the  man  whose  heart  does  not  in  this  respect 
beat  in  sympathy  with  the  popular  heart. 


120     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Do  we  like  men  and  women  who  happen 
to  be  "off  color"  because  they  are  brutal, 
or  cruel,  or  loose  in  their  morals  ?  Do  we 
love  our  troublesome  school-boy  because  he 
makes  trouble  ?  In  our  liking  for  the  Jim 
Bluclsoes  or  Trilbys  do  we  approve  vulgar 
oaths,  unseemly  jests,  drunkenness,  or  de- 
bauchery ?  Certainly  not.  But  what  we 
do  love  and  admire  is  a  gleam  of  life,  reality, 
sincerity,  generous  and  unselfish  abandon. 
The  "good"  people,  shut  up  within  the 
reservations  of  their  egotism,  or  their  supe- 
rior caste,  give  us  no  touch  of  real,  joyous, 
bountiful  life.  They  exploit  law  and  order 
for  their  own  benefit,  like  the  "  good  "  boy 
who  proposes  to  earn  a  holiday  with  his 
conduct  marks.  Between  selfish  "good- 
ness," that  is,  merely  orderly  conduct,  and 
a  certain  lawlessness,  with  moments  of  gen- 
erosity shining  out  of  it,  we  frankly  prefer 
the  sight  of  the  latter,  though  we  may  not 
altogether  enjoy  living  next  door  to  it. 

It  is  interesting  and  almost  startling,  as 
one  reads  the  New  Testament,  to  observe 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  121 

how  Jesus  regards  the  conventional  or  legal 
difference  between  the  "  good "  and  the 
k'  bad,"  how  he  ignores  the  ordinary  distinc- 
tions, how  he  goes  to  dine  at  the  Pharisees' 
houses  and  consorts  equally  with  publicans 
and  sinners.  Is  it  explained  that  he  goes  to 
the  latter  in  order  "  to  do  them  good "  ? 
But  he  evidently  likes  them  and  finds  them 
interesting.  He  is  actually  in  closer  sym- 
pathy with  them  than  with  the  respectable 
Pharisees  1 

Shall  we  go  oil  to  rub  out  all  the  costly  dis- 
tinctions that  the  world  has  marked  between 
its  good  and  its  bad,  between  law  and  order 
on  the  one  hand  and  lawlessness  and  bar- 
barism on  the  other  ?  Shall  we  make  saints 
of  the  Jim  Bludsoes  and  the  Trilbys,  and 
raise  monuments  to  such  men  as  Crispus  At- 
tucks?  On  the  contrary,  we  are  urged  to 
discover  the  sounder  and  more  vital  sense  of 
the  word  "goodness."  We  must  insist  upon 
a  real  distinction  between  the  good  and  the 
bad,  instead  of  a  superficial  and  conven- 
tional distinction. 


122     THE   RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Our  problem  is  really  the  problem  of  every 
school-room  and  nursery.  It  is  even  the 
problem  of  the  stock-raiser  who  has  colts  to 
train.  There  are  two  prime  requisites  in  the 
perfect  horse  :  one  is  good  form,  discipline, 
obedience.  The  horse  will  be  useless  that 
throws  its  rider,  that  runs  away,  that  will 
not  go  in  the  carriage  or  balks  at  its  load. 
But  there  is  even  more  need  of  life,  force, 
ease,  and  speed  than  of  discipline.  The 
problem  is  to  combine  training  and  life. 
The  training  must  not  waste  the  life ;  it 
must  develop  the  life,  so  that  the  trained 
creature  can  do  and  be  more  than  he  could 
possibly  do  and  be  if  left  to  run  wild. 
This  splendid  combination  is  often  actually 
achieved. 

We  try  for  the  same  kind  of  combination 
in  the  education  of  our  children.  We  want 
to  keep  every  ounce  of  their  exuberant 
energy,  and  to  turn  it  over  by  discipline  into 
beauty,  grace,  and  efficiency.  We  do  this 
with  the  body  in  the  gymnasium ;  we  aim  or 
ought  to  aim  to  do  the  same  with  the  mind 


WHAT  IT  IS   TO  BE   GOOD.  123 

in  the  university.  We  have  the  same  task 
with  the  character.  Show  us  only  wild 
goodness,  slovenly,  inconstant,  impatient, 
blundering,  and  then  show  us  trained  good- 
ness —  watchful,  biding  its  time,  uncom- 
plaining, faithful  to  death,  generous,  and 
who  will  not  choose  the  latter  ? 

Let  us  see  now  what  it  really  is  to  be 
good.  To  express  good  will  or  love  is  to  be 
good.  To  let  good  will,  flowing  from  the 
heart  of  God,  as  if  from  an  infinite  reservoir, 
flow  through  us  and  use  us  —  this  is  the 
soul  of  goodness.  This  is  perfectly  natural, 
albeit  divine.  In  every  act  of  real  love 
we  are  good.  The  mother  is  good  to  her 
little  child ;  the  friendless  tramp  is  good 
at  least  to  his  dog,  or  else  he  is  lonely  in- 
deed. You  are  good  to  your  friends,  or  else 
you  have  no  right  to  call  them  friends. 
Every  one  is  good,  at  least  in  gleams  of  good- 
ness, in  happy  hours,  in  grand  moments  when 
the  tide  of  love  comes  flowing  in  upon  the 
soul  amid  the  trumpet  calls  of  duty.  We 
fall  in  love.  Is  it  not  as  if  God  inspired 


124     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

us  at  such  times  ?  Who  has  not  known 
times  when  it  was  easy  to  be  good,  and  when 
for  a  little  while  we  were  good,  —  to  a  few 
or  to  one,  if  not  to  many,  — -  in  the  sight  of 
God  if  not  hi  the  sight  of  the  world?  We 
were  good  because  hi  these  better  moments 
we  carried  good  will  in  our  hearts ;  we  let 
our  love  well  up  into  expression ;  we  spoke 
it  or  acted  it ;  its  light  was  in  our  faces ; 
its  frank  fearlessness  was  in  our  hearts. 

When,  therefore,  the  roystering  engineer 
goes  to  his  death  with  his  hand  on  the 
throttle  of  his  engine,  when  the  sailor,  yes- 
terday drunk  and  profane,  goes  over  the 
ship's  side  to  the  rescue  of  perishing  strangers 
on  a  storm-tossed"  wreck,  when  the  aban- 
doned woman  gives  her  last  morsel  of  bread 
to  a  famishing  child,  we  say,  "  Behold  good- 
ness, even  the  goodness  of  God."  Continue 
such  good  will,  reiterate  such  acts,  be  good 
to  others  as  you  are  good  to  this  one  whom 
you  love ;  in  short,  keep  the  flow  of  the 
divine  current  open  from  the  infinite  reser- 
voir through  your  soul,  as  through  a  channel, 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  125 

and  in  so  doing  you  are  living  the  eternal 
life ;  you  share  in  the  goodness  of  God. 
Who  wishes  to  do  any  wrong  to  another  so 
long  as  good  will  possesses  and  breathes 
through  him? 

The  trouble  with  our  goodness  is  not 
that  we  do  not  know  how  to  be  good,  but 
that  we  will  not  be  good  all  the  time.  Men 
behave  like  the  electric  light,  when  it  was  first 
installed  in  our  cities.  It  would  shine  out 
for  a  time,  and  without  a  moment's  warning 
it  would  leave  the  city  in  darkness.  So 
men  are  good  by  fits  and  starts,  but  you  can- 
not depend  upon  them,  or  know  in  what 
dark  and  stormy  night  the  shining  of  their 
goodness  will  go  out. 

Real  goodness  is  not  merely  a  continuous 
force ;  it  is  also  universal  in  its  nature.  I 
mean  that  it  shines  out  upon  all  and  not 
merely  upon  a  select  few.  With  most  men 
there  is  a  dark  belt  where  their  goodness 
does  not  act ;  they  have  enemies,  or  rivals, 
or  those  whom  they  despise,  or  to  whom 
they  are  indifferent.  For  the  various  dog- 


126     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

matic  phases  of  Christianity  I  have  no  con- 
cern. But  the  name,  at  its  best,  stands  for 
the  ideal  of  a  universal  or  humanitarian 
form  of  goodness.  The  characteristic  of 
the  divine  good  will  is  that  it  makes  no 
distinction  of  persons.  It  goes  out  freely 
wherever  need  is.  The  greater  the  need, 
the  more  active  and  generous  is  the  love  of 
God.  Do  we  not  wish  to  be  like  God  in 
respect  to  the  all-round  generosity  of  our 
goodness  ? 

Suppose  that  you  had  lived  before  the 
government  ever  built  lighthouses.  Sup- 
pose that  your  house  had  stood  on  a  point 
where  the  ships  sailed  by  into  the  harbor. 
Suppose  that  partly  out  of  kindliness,  and 
also  because  you  were  a  ship-owner  yourself, 
you  kept  a  bright  light  in  your  window  to 
guide  the  sailors  in  dark  nights.  Suppose 
now  that  you  knew  to  a  certainty  the  charac- 
ter of  every  ship  and  crew  that  approached, 
the  kind  captains  and  the  cruel  ones,  your 
own  countrymen  and  foreigners,  the  vessels 
in  which  you  owned  a  share  and  your  rivals' 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  127 

vessels,  also  certain  crews  of  desperate  and 
dangerous  men.  Suppose  now,  since  the  light 
is  your  own,  and  you  can  do  as  you  please 
with  it,  you  are  able  to  turn  it  on  or  shut 
it  off  at  will,  as  each  vessel  passes  ;  you  can 
use  it  to  help  the  people  whom  you  like,  and 
you  can  simply  leave  the  others  to  get  on  as 
well  as  they  can  without  any  light.  It  will 
not  be  your  affair  if  they  go  to  wreck.  Why 
should  you  keep  a  light  at  your  own  ex- 
pense for  your  rivals,  for  Frenchmen  and 
Dutchmen,  for  cruel  and  desperate  char- 
acters of  whom  it  would  be  a  convenient 
thing  to  rid  the  earth  ? 

Is  there  any  reader  so  barbarous  as  to 
admit  but  one  answer  to  this  question  ? 
Would  not  every  one  choose  to  help  all  the 
men  whom  he  could  possibly  save  with  his 
light  ?  Would  any  one  let  the  foreigners  or 
even  his  worst  enemy  go  to  wreck  for  want 
of  the  warning  lamp  ? 

This  illustration  carries  the  practical  es- 
sence of  the  universal  religion,  without 
which  the  world  can  never  be  civilized. 


128     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Why  must  I  keep  my  good  will  continually 
flowing,  not  only  for  my  friends,  but  for  all 
men,  never  asking  the  question  whether 
they  are  good  to  me  or  not  ?  Because  this 
is  the  divine  and  universal  law  of  all  spirit- 
ual life,  because  God,  the  father  of  our 
spirits,  does  thus  for  us,  and  to  do  as 
God  does  is  what  every  man  is  here  for. 
We  cannot  even  be  good  to  those  who  are 
good  to  us,  unless  the  divine  current  is 
turned  on  once  for  all,  and  we  make  up  our 
minds  to  keep  it  on,  so  far  as  we  can,  forever. 
If  we  turn  off  the  flow  of  our  good  will 
because  others  are  not  good  to  us,  and  let 
them  go  to  wreck  for  aught  we  care,  in  the 
same  hour  of  our  darkness  we  shall  let  the 
light  go  out  for  our  friends,  our  brothers, 
and  our  children.  If  we  will  not  turn  on 
the  light  for  strangers  we  shall  not  turn  it 
on  in  those  desolate  changes  of  weather 
when  our  friends  look  like  strangers.  The 
one  law  of  our  life  is  to  turn  on  the  power 
and  to  keep  it  on.  The  one  prayer  is 
that,  whatever  we  do,  we  may  never  show 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  129 

ill  will  or  self  will,  but  only  good  will 
to  all. 

We  are  surely  so  made  as  to  admire  this 
ideal.  Why  else  is  it  that  the  heart  of  the 
world  goes  out  to  Jesus  ?  Suppose,  as  he 
hung  at  last  on  the  cross,  he  had  given  up 
his  religion,  and  had  played  for  a  moment 
the  part  of  the  animal  and  barbarous  man ; 
suppose  instead  of  blessing  those  who  per- 
secuted him  he  had  cursed  Pilate  and 
Herod,  the  high  priest  and  the  Pharisees. 
How  could  mankind  ever  have  called  him  a 
Master  in  Goodness  if  he  had  not  stood 
true  to  his  splendid  faith  in  a  God  who 
loves  all  men,  whose  sun  shines  alike  on  the 
evil  and  on  the  good  ? 

We  admire  Jesus  not  less  but  more, 
because  such  all-round  love  is  not  unique 
and  exceptional  in  him.  It  is  in  us  all  to 
do  the  same  as  he  did.  In  fact,  civilization 
is  nothing  less  than  this,  and  civilization 
only  comes  in  by  this  means.  The  men 
and  women  of  good  will  are  the  only  civilized 
people,  the  only  true  civilizers.  The  names 


130     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

of  Howard,  Elizabeth  Frye,  Dorothy  Dix, 
David  Livingstone,  George  Peabody,  Monte- 
fiore,  Leclaire  are  enough  to  suggest  a  host 
of  those  who,  having  caught  the  primal  law 
of  the  life  of  the  children  of  God,  have 
served  to  change  the  face  of  the  world,  as 
when  the  spring  sun  shines  on  the  bare 
hillsides. 

The  health  of  our  souls  rises  and  falls 
with  the  flow  of  the  good  will  in  us.  It  is 
like  our  bodily  health,  which,  when  the  circu- 
lation is  sluggish,  falls  close  to  the  danger 
line  of  disease.  Hardly  does  temptation  be- 
set us  in  the  hours  when  our  lives  go  freely 
with  the  current  of  the  divine  goodness. 
Does  the  current  of  our  good  will  drop  ? 
Does  any  one  venture  to  say,  "  I  have  been 
good  for  a  long  time ;  now  I  will  have  my 
way  and  be  selfish  for  a  little  ?  "  Alas  !  when 
the  noble  nature  ceases  to  be  noble  and 
begins  to  be  selfish  it  is  a  more  dangerous 
selfishness  than  that  of  the  child.  Herein 
is  the  tragedy  of  "  The  Lost  Leader."  Does 
the  civilized  or  "  Christian  "  nation  leave  its 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  131 

place  as  a  civilizing  power,  and  begin  to  play 
the  r61e  of  a  fighting  people?  When  the 
"good"  kill  one  another  killing  is  more 
awful  than  when  savages  do  it.  There  is 
one  law  of  safety.  It  is  to  keep  open  the 
flood-gates  of  good  will,  never  to  dare  to 
close  them  against  any  one.  Let  us  never 
forget  it,  that  when  this  vital  connection  is 
broken,  no  one  is  safe  ;  no  action  is  valid. 
Without  good  will  or  love  the  good  be- 
come as  the  bad  ;  with  good  will  the  bad  at 
once  cease  to  be  bad  and  are  good.  As  the 
plant  must  reach  up  and  spread  out  its 
leaves  toward  the  sun,  so  the  life  of  man 
must  forever  spread  itself  out  to  receive  and 
transmit  beneficence. 

A  profound  question  of  philosophy  finds 
answer  here.  It  is  about  the  relation  of  hap- 
piness to  dufy.  In  the  eyes  of  love  happi- 
ness and  duty  become  one.  What  is  the 
way  of  happiness  in  the  home  ?  It  is  the 
way  of  order  and  love.  What  is  the  way  of 
happiness  among  friends  ?  It  is  again  the 
same.  Give  yourself  to  your  friends  and 


132     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

friendship  rises  thus  to  its  summit.  This 
is  coining  to  be  recognized  as  the  law  in  all 
successful  human  business.  What  is  the  way 
of  thorough-going  satisfaction  in  one's  trade 
or  profession  ?  It  is  in  the  utmost  social 
service.  Who  can  do  most  for  his  customers, 
for  his  clients,  for  the  enrichment  of  man- 
kind? He  is  the  happiest  man  in  his  work. 
Human  welfare  or  happiness  is  in  good  will. 
Love  is  life.  To  express  the  largest  flow  of 
the  divine  goodness  of  which  you  are  capable, 
whether  in  art,  music,  literature,  statesman- 
ship, or  in  the  humblest  domestic  service,  is 
satisfaction  and  gladness. 

Does  this  translate  all  human  goodness 
into  selfishness  ?  The  very  reverse.  It  makes 
selfishness,  that  is,  the  vague  childish  instinct 
for  well  being,  the  raw  material  out  of  which 
real  and  generous  love  is  developed.  Even 
self-love  is  the  starting-point  of  true  love. 
The  child  grasps  after  the  shadow,  but  it  is 
the  sun  that  casts  the  shadow.  But  this  fact 
of  a  crude  beginning  does  not  make  the  real 
and  well-grown  love  to  be  anything  else 


WHAT  IT  IS    TO   BE   GOOD.  133 

than  divine.  The  true  man  who  sees  and 
loves  God  in  his  every  manifestation,  who  sees 
and  loves  life  like  his  own  life,  akin  also  to 
God,  in  the  face  of  the  dullest  of  his  fellows, 
who  counts  this  whole  earthly  life  naught, 
as  Paul  said,  for  love's  sake,  does  not  surely 
hate  himself,  whom  God  also  made.  He  loves 
himself,  that  is,  the  image  of  the  goodness 
of  God,  but  he  loves  himself,  not  as  the  centre 
of  the  universe,  but  as  simply  one  among 
many  brothers.  Once  in  the  little  child's 
heart  years  ago  this  love  of  God  only  showed 
itself  by  a  spark  of  consciousness  and  per- 
haps a  cry  of  pain ;  now  that  same  life  at  the 
stature  of  manhood  manifests  itself  freely  in 
a  continuous  flow  of  delightful  and  noble 
emotions,  going  out  to  all  God's  universe. 

"  A  sacred  burden  is  this  life  ye  bear; 
Look  on  it,  lift  it,  bear  it  solemnly, 
Stand  up  and  walk  beneath  it  steadfastly. 
Fail  not  for  sorrow,  falter  not  for  sin, 
But  onward,  upward,  till  the  goal  ye  win." 


134     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   GREAT   RENUNCIATION. 

No  chivalrous  and  generous  nature  is  con- 
tent with  an  easy  religion.  As  in  the  old 
stories  of  Hercules,  the  noble  soul  challenges 
the  immortal  powers  to  set  it  worthy  and 
daring  tasks  to  accomplish.  Is  there  divinity 
in  any  form  of  religion  which  does  not  pro- 
pose some  splendid  act  of  renunciation  ? 

The  New  Testament  is  full  of  the  word 
"  whatsoever."  It  stands  for  a  certain  infinite 
element  in  the  religion  that  created  the  New 
Testament.  It  calls  upon  the  infinite  ele- 
ment in  man.  The  New  Testament  is  for- 
ever saying,  "  Whatsoever  God  bids  you,  do 
it."  This  idea  carries  with  it  the  continual 
promise  (I  scorn  to  say  menace  or  peril)  of 
what  the  world  knows  as  sacrifice  or  renun- 
ciation. He  who  takes  a  religion  with  this 
idea  of  "  whatsoever  "  in  it  must  face  and  wel- 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.          135 

come  the  possibility  of  the  giving  up  of  all 
that  he  possesses. 

This  is  not  because  religion  is  apart  from 
ordinary  life.  We  have  already  seen  that 
ease,  joy,  and  freedom  in  everything  that 
man  accomplishes  depend  on  his  obeying 
the  primal  law  —  to  give  himself  up,  to  let 
himself  go,  to  merge  self  altogether  in  that 
which  he  undertakes.  He  is  not  a  free  man 
till  he  thus  lets  himself  go  as  the  good  will 
of  the  universe  bids.  It  is  equally  true, 
though  it  may  seem  like  a  paradox,  that  we 
never  actually  possess  anything  till  we  are 
able,  if  ever  the  need  arises,  to  relinquish 
its  possession.  The  miser  does  not  possess 
his  money;  his  money  possesses  him.  The 
generous  man,  who  is  ready  to  let  his  money 
go,  alone  possesses  it.  I  do  not  possess  my 
own  body  as  long  as  I  am  afraid  to  die.  In 
that  case  my  body  makes  me  its  slave.  I 
possess  my  body  when  I  am  ready  to  live  or 
die,  as  God  pleases.  I  do  not  fairly  possess 
the  love  of  my  friend  or  my  child  if  my 
love  insists  upon  keeping  him  with  me  for- 


136     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

ever.  I  must  be  willing  to  let  him  go  free ; 
my  love  must  put  no  constraint  on  my 
friend,  or  else  it  binds  him  and  me.  I  do  not 
own  an  idea  or  a  thought  so  long  as  I  hug 
it  close  as  a  secret  and  private  possession ; 
it  is  only  fully  mine  when  I  can  use  it, 
publish  it,  set  it  free  to  traverse  the  earth. 
What  I  wholly  own  I  share  with  the  uni- 
verse ;  I  hold  my  possessions  in  sacred  trust, 
but  they  hold  me,  not  I  them,  till  I  am 
ready  and  willing  to  deliver  them  over  to 
the  Master  of  life. 

If  what  I  say  is  true  we  shall  find  life  full 
of  instances  and  object  lessons  of  renuncia- 
tion, as  if  to  give  us  daily  practice.  What 
is  the  condition  of  success  with  the  man 
who  really  succeeds  in  any  business  or  pro- 
fession ?  There  is  an  element  of  renuncia- 
tion. The  man,  from  boyhood  up,  seems  to 
say,  "  This  one  thing  I  do."  He  puts  side 
issues  where  they  belong ;  he  says  "  No  "  to 
self-indulgence ;  he  turns  the  streams  of  his 
energy  where  they  will  drive  the  wheels  of 
his  purpose.  This  is  sacrifice  or  renuncia- 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.          137 

tion,  so  far  as  it  goes.  You  say  it  is  sacri- 
fice of  the  less  for  the  sake  of  the  greater ; 
you  call  it  economy  or  even  intelligent  sel- 
fishness. But  all  renunciation  is  of  the  less 
for  the  greater ;  it  is  always  real  economy  or 
it  is  not  called  for ;  it  is  not  genuine  sacrifice 
if  it  is  not  intelligent.  It  only  needs  to  be 
more  intelligent  and  it  will  altogether  cease 
to  be  selfish.  The  end  toward  which  it 
marches  is  larger  than  the  individual.  The 
individual  welfare  is  taken  up  into  the  wel- 
fare of  all  men,  as  the  least  violin  in  the 
orchestra  becomes  a  part  of  the  symphony. 

See  how  true  this  is,  when  the  man  who 
has  so  far  sacrificed  for  himself  and  suc- 
ceeded for  himself  now  falls  in  love  and  be- 
gins to  know  by  experience  new,  wider,  and 
deeper  human  relations.  Where  this  true 
love  is,  the  old  story  of  Jacob  and  Rachel 
forever  comes  to  pass.  The  man's  toilsome, 
scheming  gains  of  years  are  as  nothing  pro- 
vided he  can  win  the  woman's  love.  He 
does  not  deserve  her  or  love  her  enough  if 
he  would  not  renounce  all  that  he  has  for 


138     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

her  sake.  The  quaint  words  of  the  wedding- 
service,  "  For  better,  for  worse,"  and  "  With 
all  my  worldly  goods  I  thee  endow,"  suggest 
this  fact.  Nay !  he  does  not  love  her  well 
enough,  nor  quite  deserve  her,  if  he  would 
not  be  willing  to  renounce  even  his  claim  to 
her  love,  provided  another  could  make  her 
more  truly  happy.  Years  pass  ;  perhaps  she 
is  ill,  or  his  children  fall  sick.  What  does 
he  grudge  or  hold  back,  to  the  extent  of  all 
that  he  owns,  if  he  can  save  a  single  life  that 
he  loves  ?  Yes  !  renunciation  is  in  the  warp 
and  woof  of  human  life.  We  would  not 
wish  it  away,  as  we  would  not  wish  love  to 
be  less  or  other  than  love. 

Stories  are  told  every  day  of  this  kind  of 
renunciation,  of  which  the  simple  actors  are 
hardly  even  conscious.  A  poor  woman  in  a 
crowded  Chicago  tenement  takes  into  her 
home  the  mother  and  children  of  another 
family,  mere  acquaintances,  poorer  than  her- 
self, and  provides  for  them,  like  the  good 
Samaritan.  It  is  a  mere  accident  that  this 
characteristic  story  out  of  the  short  and 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.          139 

simple  annals  of  the  poor  comes  to  our 
knowledge.  The  beauty  of  this  story  is 
that  the  kindly  woman  probably  never  kne\v 
that  she  was  doing  anything  unusual.  What 
are  friends  good  for,  unless  they  stand  ready 
to  give  up  all  that  they  have  for  one 
another  ? 

The  people  of  Lucerne  show  the  traveller 
a  monument  of  a  lion,  erected  to  the  memory 
of  a  force  of  Swiss  guards  who  were  cut  to 
pieces  in  defence  of  the  Tuileries  at  the  out- 
break of  the  French  revolution.  These  men 
were  nothing  but  "  mercenaries,"  but  having 
once  sold  their  lives  to  the  French  king,  they 
held  themselves  to  belong  to  him.  Yes  ! 
even  an  honest  bargain  carries  with  it  the 
idea  of  renunciation.  Cost  what  it  will,  you 
must  deliver  the  goods,  of  the  quality,  at  the 
very  price,  and  at  the  appointed  time,  ex- 
actly as  you  had  agreed. 

Mr.  Kipling  has  a  short  story  called 
William  the  Conqueror.  There  appears  at 
first  to  be  nothing  noteworthy  in  the  three 
young  people  whom  the  story  concerns. 


140     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

But  when  famine  breaks  out  and  the  sudden 
call  is  for  a  certain  absolutely  devoted  kind 
of  relief  work,  then  these  two  men  in  the 
civil  service  and  the  girl,  the  sister  of 
one  of  them,  "  renounce  all "  to  start  off 
hundreds  of  miles  into  the  land  of  death. 
They  forsake  their  comfortable  quarters, 
the  chances  of  vacation  and  pleasure,  and 
all  immediate  possibilities  of  professional 
promotion.  The  engineer  leaves  his  own 
business  of  engineering  and  offers  himself 
to  do  any  menial  task  that  human  hands 
can  do  for  starving  women  and  children. 
The  young  girl  puts  aside  her  love  for 
society,  display,  dances,  and  dress,  and  all 
regard  for  her  health,  and  changes  herself 
into  a  nurse  for  native  orphan  babies  whom 
she  never  had  seen  before.  What  is  the 
marvelous  and  infinite  element  of  the  "  what- 
soever" in  human  lives  that  turns  all  seem- 
ing obstacles  into  stepping-stones,  that 
smiles  at  toil  or  pain  ?  It  is  surely  of  the 
nature  of  God.  No  wonder  that  the  truest 
love  story  springs  out  of  the  splendid  renun- 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.         141 

elation  in  which  a  man  and  a  woman  see 
each  in  the  other  a  likeness  of  the  Eternal. 
No  wonder  that  our  gifted  realistic  story- 
teller makes  the  summer  of  privation  and 
peril  the  time  of  the  sweetest  joy  for  the 
two  souls  who  had  found  out  together  what 
it  means,  "  He  that  loseth  his  life  shall  save 
it."  Have  we  not  seen  that  no  one  truly 
has  life  unless  the  divine  element  of  "  what- 
soever "  brings  his  soul  into  touch  with  the 
everlasting  sources  of  being  ? 

There  was  once  a  teaching,  quite  familiar 
in  New  England  and  Scotland,  that  "  mere 
morality  never  would  save  a  soul."  This 
teaching  shocked  many  persons.  "  What !  " 
they  cried,  "is  it  not  enough  to  be  just, 
pure,  truthful,  affectionate,  and  benevolent  ? 
What  more  do  you  ask?  "  Is  it  possible  that 
the  harsh  and  extremely  awkward  saying 
had  truth  in  it?  There  is  conduct,  that 
is,  morality  which  we  recognize  as  conven- 
tional and  outward.  There  is  an  honesty 
which  is  measured,  being  set  to  the  prevalent 
fashion  of  the  group  or  community  where 


142     THE  RELIGION   OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

honesty  happens  to  be  respectable  up  to 
a  certain  degree.  There  is  a  species  of 
"  charity  "  which  falls  far  short  of  "  giving 
one's  goods  to  feed  the  poor ;  "  there  is  a 
"  fidelity "  which  has  to  give  bonds  for  its 
good  behavior  which  never  dreams  of 
"  giving  one's  body  to  be  burned."  Why 
can  it  be  too  often  said,  "  Every  man  has 
his  price "  ?  Why  do  men  who  seem  re- 
spectable, temperate,  virtuous  at  home  be- 
come loose,  vulgar,  disreputable,  and  even 
false  when  they  are  transplanted  to  the 
frontier,  to  garrison  life,  to  a  foreign  city  ? 
Surely  it  ought  never  to  be  said  of  a  man 
who  is  a  man  that  he  can  be  purchased, 
or  that  having  known  civilized  life  he  can 
ever  be  tempted  to  live  as  a  barbarian. 

The  truth  is,  customs,  conventions,  insti- 
tutions, morals,  codes,  such  as  they  are,  are 
hardly  more  than  stagings  and  scaffoldings 
for  the  making  of  men.  We  always  want  to 
know  what  the  man  is,  in  his  inward  struc- 
ture. Is  he  true,  pure,  faithful,  honorable, 
benevolent  at  heart?  Is  the  kingdom  of 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.         143 

God,  as  Jesus  said,  within  him?  The  char- 
acteristic of  this  inward  structural  quality  is 
that  which  expresses  itself  in  the  word  "  what- 
soever." As  soon  as  goodness  is  vital  it  is 
devoted. 

In  one  sense  the  true  man  still  "has  a 
price ; "  but  it  is  no  longer  a  price  in  material 
terms;  it  cannot  be  reckoned  in  dollars. 
Think  of  purchasing  Emerson,  or  Beethoven, 
or  Michael  Angelo,  or  Paul !  You  measure 
the  value  of  these  men  in  quite  immaterial 
terms  of  Thought,  Beauty,  Justice,  Benefi- 
cence. You  value  the  man  by  what  he 
can  do  for  humanity,  to  express  the  mind 
and  heart  of  God.  Tell  what  good  deeds, 
heroisms,  hours  of  sympathy,  flashes  of  love, 
pictures,  temples,  and  symphonies  cost  and 
are  worth  to  the  world,  and  you  have  fixed 
the  price  at  which  true  men  are  bought. 
These  prices  are  infinite,  the  men  who  bear 
them  have  an  infinite  worth.  There  is  no 
sound  morality  which  does  not  rise  out  of 
this  infinite  and  truly  spiritual  quality  which 
God  shares  with  his  children.  Never  dare 


144     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

to  be  sure  of  the  depth  of  any  virtue  to 
which  the  soul  does  not  cry  out  of  its  depths, 
"  Whatsoever  the  beautiful  law  bids,  I  will 
strive  to  fulfil."  Is  not  this  what  Emerson 
sings : 

"  So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  '  Thou  must,' 
The  youth  replies,  '  I  can.'" 

It  is  this  quite  infinite  element  in  vital 
morality  that  always  presses  us  home  to  re- 
ligion. Why  is  not  conduct  enough?  men 
aften  ask.  It  is  enough  if  it  is  thorough- 
going, efficient,  unreserved.  But  such  con- 
duct as  this  is  religious  conduct.  It  flows 
out  of  good  will,  regnant  in  the  heart, —  such 
good  will  as  rules  the  universe. 

The  old  theologians  propounded  the  ques- 
tion, "  Would  a  man  be  willing  to  be  damned 
for  the  glory  of  God?"  In  one  aspect  it 
was  an  abominable  and  well-nigh  blasphe- 
mous question.  On  the  other  hand  it  illus- 
trates the  essentially  spiritual  nature  of  man 
that  any  one  could  ask  such  a  question,  and 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.         145 

that  men  could  always  be  found  who,  catch- 
ing its  real  meaning,  could  answer,  "Yes." 
What  is  the  glory  of  God  ?  It  is  the  joy 
and  welfare  of  his  creation,  is  it  not  ?  If  then, 
in  some  inconceivable  way  your  loss,  your 
pain,  your  death,  yes,  even  your  eternal 
death,  might  really  mean  gain  and  joy  and 
welfare  forever  to  all  your  brothers,  ought 
you  not  to  be  willing,  would  you  not  be 
willing,  to  say,  "  Use  me,  O  Master  of  Life, 
wherever  and  however  thou  wilt "  ? 

See,  however,  the  splendid  paradox  here. 
To  utter  this  grand  renunciation,  to  vow  all 
that  one  has,  provided  Goodness  demands  it, 
—  this  is  to  love  as  God  loves.  And  this  is 
to  live,  aye !  and  to  have  life  eternal.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  meaning  of  the  old  Christ-story. 
One  who  had  all  glory,  men  said,  left  all  be- 
hind and  gave  himself  up  for  love's  sake  to 
do  the  uttermost  will  of  Beneficence.  How 
wonderful,  men  cried,  that  any  saint  or 
angel  of  God,  or  even  God's  son,  should 
show  such  goodness  as  this  !  But  lo !  the 
old  story  has  long  ago  become  typical  and 


146     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

illustrative  of  what  resides  in  our  common 
human  nature.  What  true  son  of  man,  see- 
ing man's  great  need,  would  not,  like  the 
Oriental  Buddha,  strip  himself  and  go  out 
of  his  Paradise,  if  God  so  bade  him,  to  seek 
and  save  his  brothers  ?  What  is  any  son  of 
man  here  for,  whether  in  a  palace,  a  farm- 
house, or  an  attic,  except  for  the  service  of 
the  brotherhood  of  man? 

Is  it  said  that  each  man  is  here  for  his 
own  welfare  ?  The  deep  law  is,  that  his  own 
welfare  is  inseparable  from  the  good  of 
humanity.  He  can  never  grow  to  the 
measure  of  his  own  best  self  unless  he  is  a 
lover,  a  friend,  a  citizen  of  the  world.  He 
does  not  know  love  unless  his  love  is  devoted 
and  infinite,  like  the  love  of  God.  Was  not 
this  the  truth  that  the  young  governor  of  a 
great  State  was  trying  to  grasp  when  he 
praised  "  the  strenuous  life  "  ?  This  is  not 
the  life  of  the  athlete  or  the  fighter.  It  is 
infinitely  more  sacred.  It  is  moral  courage, 
tremendously  needed  in  America  to-day, 
devoted,  earnest,  faithful  to  death,  strong 


THE   GREAT  RENUNCIATION.          147 

enough  to  say  "  No  "  on  occasion  to  the  siren 
voices  of  wealth,  luxury,  self-indulgence,  or 
ambition,  to  popular  majorities  or  partisan 
czars,  —  strong  also  to  say  an  enthusiastic 
"  Yes  "  to  whatever  truth  or  duty  or  country 
or  humanity  requires. 

"  God's  trumpet  wakes  the  slumbering  world  : 

Now  each  man  to  his  post ! 
The  red-cross  banner  is  unfurled; 
Who  joins  the  glorious  host? 

"  He  who  in  fealty  to  the  truth, 

And  counting  all  the  cost, 
Doth  consecrate  his  generous  youth,  — 
He  joins  the  noble  host!  " 


148     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE   SOLDIERLY   LIFE. 

WHO  is  so  great  a  lover  of  peace  as 
to  wish  that  there  had  never  been  any  war  ? 
Who  would  be  willing  to  wipe  out  of  the 
memory  of  our  race  every  story  of  the  world's 
Marathons  and  Bunker  Hills,  and  all  the  bat- 
tie  songs  ?  We  all  agree  that  the  nations 
ought  to  learn  to  live  together  in  peace,  but 
when  we  try  to  imagine  the  consummation  of 
our  hopes,  when  we  .rule  out  of  the  sight  of 
future  men  the  great  battleships,  the  forts 
and  guns,  all  the  pomp  and  parade  of  war, 
the  march  of  battalions  through  the  streets, 
the  stirring  martial  music,  we  must  confess 
that  something  of  picturesqueness  will  have 
gone  forever.  We  are  ready  indeed  to  sacri- 
fice this  picturesqueness.  Every  human  re- 
form and  advance  involves  a  sacrifice  of 
some  sort.  The  jungle  and  swamp,  the  tiger, 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  149 

wolf  and  cobra,  slavery  dwelling  on  grand  pa- 
triarchal estates,  poverty  starving  in  hovels, 
the  magnificent  costumes  of  rich  lords  and 
the  quaint  dress  of  peasants,  even  the  moss- 
grown  cottage  and  the  old  oaken  bucket  of 
our  fathers,  had  an  aspect  of  picturesque- 
ness  which  the  man  of  to-day  must  recog- 
nize, while  he  sturdily  turns  away  from  it, 
as  he  turns  away  from  the  face  of  death. 

What  we  will  not  give  up,  however,  is  our 
memories  of  certain  tremendous  human  ex- 
periences dearly  bought,  but  precious.  We 
will  still  tell  the  stories  of  Thermopylae  and 
Lexington,  and  recite  the  "  Charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade."  We  will  continue  to  be  glad 
and  not  sorry  that  our  forefathers  fought  on 
many  a  bloody  field.  Why  do  we  dare  to 
say  this  ?  It  is  not  because  we  love  slaugh- 
ter and  barbarity,  not  because  it  is  ever  well 
for  men  to  hate  each  other,  but  because  we 
are  made  to  love  the  drama,  and  war,  in  spite 
of  all  its  horror  of  carnage  and  cruelty,  is 
essentially  dramatic.  I  mean  that  war  has 
afforded  innumerable  pictures  of  effort  and 


150     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN, 

struggle,  of  the  greatest  and  noblest  manly 
qualities,  — intelligence,  patience,  resolution, 
hardihood,  chivalry,  —  represented  in  action. 
As  much  as  we  may  hate  war,  we  cannot 
help  our  admiration  for  the  grand  dramatic 
events  which  in  all  times  have  suggested  in 
and  behind  war  the  play  of  forces  so  moral, 
so  humane,  so  holy  as  to  guarantee  by  and 
by  higher  and  perhaps  no  less  dramatic  forms 
of  human  life,  when  war  has  become  im- 
possible. 

"  There  is  in  fate  what  only  poets  see, 
There  is  in  fate  the  noblest  poesie." 

Children  learn  to  walk  by  falling ;  clean 
hygienic  conditions  come  out  of  the  lessons 
of  the  fever  ward.  So  out  of  the  hell 
and  barbarism  of  war  arise  certain  mighty 
spiritual  teachings.  Pray  God  that  we  may 
never  need  to  learn  these  lessons  again,  that 
we  may  walk  without  falling,  that  we  may 
not  relapse  into  the  fever  again,  that  we 
may  henceforth  practice  our  lessons  in  the 
school  of  civilization  and  not  in  the  lower 
grade  of  the  barbarian  ! 


THE  S  OLDIERL  Y  LIFE.  1 5 1 

I  wish  to  set  forth  the  splendid  ideal  of 
the  soldierly  life.  This  ideal  is  the  ingot  of 
gold  that  comes  to  our  hands  out  of  the 
cruel  fires  of  unknown  centuries  of  strife 
and  battle.  Every  youth  must  perforce  bow 
before  this  ideal,  shining  out  in  all  the  mili- 
tary records  of  the  race.  Does  he  believe 
in  the  soldierly  life  ?  Then  it  is  a  single 
step  of  necessary  logic  to  believe  in  the 
highest  ideal  of  modern  religion. 

Let  us  count  up  the  characteristics  that 
mark  the  life  of  any  good  soldier.  In  the 
first  place,  the  soldier  begins  by  giving  him- 
self altogether  away.  At  least  for  the  term 
of  his  service,  —  one  year,  three  years,  or 
while  the  war  lasts,  —  he  gives  himself  up ; 
he  is  not  his  own  master  any  longer.  Did 
he  belong  to  the  country  before  ?  He  now 
acknowledges  the  obligation,  and  does  what 
he  before  only  professed.  The  volunteer 
citizen  soldier  especially  is  no  bondman, 
the  victim  of  the  press-gang.  He  chooses 
to  give  himself  away.  He  was  never  more 
free  than  when  he  enrolled  his  name  at  the 


152     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

enlistment  office.  He  may  never  have  been 
better  satisfied  in  his  life  than  after  he  was 
sworn  into  service.  Yes,  men  generally  like 
to  be  "  sworn  in,"  as  if  indeed  it  was  an  act 
according  to  nature  to  be  bound  over  for 
life  to  a  grand  cause.  I  have  not  the 
slightest  doubt  that  this  is  true. 

See  next  what  happens  at  once.  The 
moment  the  man  is  sworn  into  the  army 
everything  of  personal  and  private  interest 
becomes  subordinate  and  incidental.  The 
main  idea  of  the  man's  life  now  is  the  ser- 
vice of  the  state.  Other  things  are  second- 
ary. Pay  and  rations,  rest  and  sleep, 
occasional  furloughs-,  comradeship  and  merry- 
making, are  incidental  to  the  service.  Who 
would  care  to  enlist  for  such  things  as 
these  ?  These  things  may  fail.  The  man 
is  bound  to  go  on  just  the  same,  with  or 
without  pay,  hungry,  weary,  sore,  till  per- 
haps he  drops  dead  in  the  march.  The 
lines  of  "  mine  and  thine  "  contract  to  the 
narrowest  limits.  The  great  word  is  no 
longer  "mine"  but  "ours."  The  social 


THE   SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  153 

forces,  not  the  selfish,  are  the  dominant  ones. 
It  is  not  only  good  for  men  to  go  with 
these  social  forces.  Whenever  they  try  life 
after  this  model  they  like  it.  The  pleasures 
that  come  along  in  the  course  of  duty,  and 
incidental  to  duty,  are  the  keenest  of  pleas- 
ures. I  count  myself  rich  in  the  number  of 
men  and  women  whom  I  have  known  who. 
have  conceived  of  life  in  this  soldierly  fash- 
ion. I  will  match  them  against  any  set  of 
pleasure  seekers  in  the  world  for  the  delight 
which  they  have  got  out  of  life.  And  yet 
pleasure  is  not  what  they  are  after  at  all. 
Does  my  friend,  a  certain  great  captain  of 
industry,  ever  stop  to  think  what  course  of 
conduct  will  pay  him  in  pleasure?  No 
more  than  General  Grant  ever  dreamed  of 
stopping  the  army  of  the  Potomac  that 
he  might  take  a  holiday.  My  friend  is 
sworn  into  the  service  of  God  and  humanity 
as  really  as  Grant  was  sworn  into  the  service 
of  the  nation.  Pay,  rations,  comforts,  fur- 
loughs, vacations,  comradeships,  are  the  in- 
cidents of  his  life. 


154     THE  RELIGION   OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Moreover,  in  army  life  every  one  lives 
under  orders.  You  have  nothing  to  do  hut 
to  obey.  Even  the  commander-in-chief  must 
obey.  The  laws  are  over  him ;  a  tremendous 
responsibility  presses  on  him.  He  is  not  fit 
for  his  place  unless  at  every  moment  he 
consults  the  welfare  of  his  cause.  He  cannot 
sit  down  to  his  dinner  to  eat  if  this  means  the 
neglect  of  his  command.  Now  men  submit 
to  this  and  like  it.  The  easiest  course  of  life, 
the  freest  of  friction,  is  thus  to  obey  at  each 
moment,  and  do  nothing  except  under  orders. 
You  might  guess  that  this  would  crush  the 
individual.  On  the  contrary,  the  greatest 
heroes  and  most  successful  soldiers,  Crom- 
well for  example,  have  developed  the  most 
robust  individualism.  To  live  under  orders 
is  in  fact  a  necessity  of  all-round  individ- 
ualism. I  hold  that  life  at  its  best  consists 
in  utter  obedience,  like  the  soldiers'.  There 
is  at  every  moment  (if,  like  Socrates,  we 
would  heed  the  inward  voice,)  some  one  thing 
which  has  now  become  the  command  of 
God,  and  therefore  the  most  desirable  of  all 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  155 

things.  It  may  be  to  march,  or  to  work,  or 
to  rest,  or  to  play.  It  steadies  me  to  think 
that  I  am  always  thus  under  orders.  What 
does  duty  or  truth,  love  or  humanity,  wis- 
dom or  good  will,  bid  me  do  ?  I  am  bound 
over  to  do  this.  Life  is  to  do  this.  To 
fail  of  this  is  to  suffer  privation  of  life. 

The  soldierly  attitude  toward  hard  work, 
fatigue,  exposure,  discomfort,  and  danger  is 
very  interesting.  To  be  dragged  out  of 
your  quarters  at  midnight,  to  be  ordered  to 
a  sentry  post,  to  stand  in  the  rain  or  snow  and 
be  shot  at  from  an  ambuscade,  to  lie  in  the 
hospital  and  have  your  wounds  dressed,  — 
these  things  seem  dreadful  as  seen  through 
the  colors  of  the  imagination.  But  human 
nature  bounds  up  elastic  under  the  actual 
pressure  of  hardship.  While  the  lookers-on 
weep,  men  in  the  thick  of  toil  and  strife 
will  have  their  merry  jests.  This  is  the  law 
wherever  men  face  duties.  You  come  to 
expect  obstacles,  losses,  disappointments, 
hurts,  and  injustice;  you  will  often  be 
asked  to  do  more  than  others  and  to  take 


156      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

less  pay  or  praise.     It  is  all  in  "the  day's 
work." 

There  is  the  same  attitude  with  regard  to 
death.  Here  are  men  living  every  day  in 
the  presence  of  death.  Their  comrades  fall 
by  their  side.  Each  day  may  be  the  last. 
This  does  not  tend  to  make  men  sorrowful. 
They  do  not  act  with  reference  to  death. 
They  eat  and  drink  and  converse  and  enjoy 
themselves  as  if  they  were  going  to  live 
forever.  They  are  able  to  be  glad  up  to  the 
very  last  breath.  This  is  as  it  should  be. 
It  is  a  figure  of  all  life.  Let  us  so  live, 
provided  we  are  obeying  orders,  as  if  we  were 
going  to  live  forever.  Let  us  think  of 
death  as  an  incident  of  life,  as  also  a  part  of 
"  the  day's  work."  Let  it  be  said,  as  in 
Milton's  "  Samson  Agonistes," 

"  Nothing  is  here  for  tears,  nothing  to  wail 
Or  knock  the  breast,  no  weakness,  no  contempt, 
Dispraise,  or  blame,  — nothing  but  well  and  fair, 
And  what  may  quiet  us  in  a  death  so  noble." 

Again,  it  does  us  good  to  see  that  in  war 
every  one  counts.  There  is  some  place  or 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  157 

niche  where  each  fits  and  is  wanted.  The 
need  is  that  every  company  shall  be  full ; 
whoever  falls  out  will  be  missed.  Even 
if  a  man  is  detailed  for  the  signal  service, 
or  to  forage,  or  to  build  bridges,  this  is  be- 
cause there  is  so  much  the  greater  need  of 
each  man.  If  the  man  is  f  urloughed  on  sick 
leave,  or  lies  wounded  in  the  hospital,  he  is 
still  counted  and  wanted.  He  is  under 
orders,  as  it  were,  to  get  well  if  he  can. 
There  is  not  a  man  hi  any  branch  of  the 
service  on  whose  fidelity  victory  does  not  de- 
pend, by  whose  unfaithfulness  or  cowardice 
defeat  is  not  menaced.  All  this  is  a  figure 
of  human  society.  It  is  a  sort  of  rough 
draught  of  the  ideal  democracy.  Who  in 
America  does  not  count  and  is  not  needed 
to  rear  the  costly  structure  of  civilization  ? 
What  voter,  what  citizen,  what  good  woman, 
what  boy  or  girl  has  not  some  place  which, 
if  it  is  honestly  filled,  helps  to  secure  the 
welfare  of  us  all?  Where  is  there  cow- 
ardice, unfaithfulness,  self-indulgence,  dis- 
honesty, bribery,  waste,  extravagance,  drunk- 


158     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

enness,  that  a  menace  and  danger  signal  is 
not  there  set  up  against  our  common  happi- 
ness, prosperity,  and. humanity? 

The  men's  lives  count  who  have  committed 
themselves  to  the  cause  of  the  nation  and 
have  been  sworn  in  to  obey.  Those  do  not 
count  for  the  sake  of  the  nation  who  are 
rolling  up  their  gains  while  others  pour  out 
their  blood.  Those  do  not  count  who  are  in 
doubt  to  which  side  they  belong.  So  always 
in  human  society.  Those  lives  do  not  count 
who  do  not  know  what  they  are  living  for 
—  idle,  unsympathetic,  selfish,  seeking  what 
they  can  get,  without  cooperation,  comrade- 
ship, or  brotherhood.  A  million  lives  like 
this  construct  nothing;  they  constitute  so 
many  obstacles  to  the  success  of  democratic 
society.  The  test  of  a  man  is  :  what  cause 
do  you  serve  with  heart  and  soul  ?  It  is  so 
in  the  army ;  it  is  so  in  athletics ;  it  is  the 
law  of  life. 

Another  curious  fact  comes  to  us  :  It  is  the 
few  and  not  the  many  who  turn  the  tide  at 
every  critical  moment  and  wrest  victory  out  of 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  159 

seeming  defeat.  It  was  a  little  phalanx  that 
carried  Greek  civilization  over  Asia.  Only  a 
few  thousand  men  fought  out  the  battles  of 
the  American  revolution.  In  most  of  the 
colonies  the  majorities  were  lukewarm  or  even 
hostile ;  the  ardor  and  patience  of  the  few  kept 
up  the  courage  of  the  many.  It  has  been 
said  that  in  every  average  regiment,  while 
ten  per  cent,  are  cowards,  only  ten  per  cent, 
are  heroes.  A  few  dauntless,  devoted  men 
will  hearten  a  thousand  to  stand  up  to  their 
duty.  Here  is  the  doctrine  of  "the  remnant," 
as  Matthew  Arnold  called  it,  that  is,  of 
leadership.  As  an  army  without  leaders  is 
futile,  so  in  society  and  the  state,  so  in  all 
the  concerns  of  civilization ;  in  the  true 
democracy  there  must  always  be  an  actual 
aristocracy.  It  consists  in  merit,  in  intelli- 
gence, in  trained  experience,  in  generosity, 
in  consecration.  The  everlasting  need  is  of 
the  spirit  of  gentlemen,  who  will  pay  any 
cost,  and  die  if  need  be,  but  will  never  quit 
the  good  cause.  Well  for  the  people  who 
discover  this  law,  who  search  out  behind 


160     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

all  costumes  and  disguises  their  true  and 
natural  leaders,  and  having  found  trust- 
worthy men,  elect  to  trust  them,  help  them, 
follow  them,  obey  their  call,  and  grow  to  be 
such  men  themselves ! 

Once  more,  we  are  able  to  answer  the 
standing  question  of  moral  skepticism.  We 
want  to  do  right,  men  say ;  we  should  like  to 
keep  the  Golden  Rule ;  we  should  like  not 
to  be  mercenaries,  forever  asking  what  pay 
or  office  we  will  get.  But  how  can  we  help 
being  mercenaries,  how  can  we  help  doing 
occasional  mean  and  dishonorable  things,  so 
long  as  other  men  around  us  are  selfish  and 
dishonest?  If  all  the  others  would  obey  the 
Golden  Rule  we  would  join  with  them.  If 
the  world  would  agree  to  some  grand 
scheme  of  socialism  and  guarantee  us  a 
living  we  would  stop  wrangling  and  com- 
peting with  each  other. 

Now,  army  life  teaches  men  who  say  these 
things  a  notable  lesson.  There  was  never 
any  army  so  patriotic,  in  which  pure  patriot- 
ism prevailed,  in  which  no  mercenaries 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  161 

were,  which  was  not  infested  by  vulgar  sut- 
lers and  camp  followers,  which  was  not 
preyed  upon  by  base  contractors,  and  which 
had  not  plenty  of  critics  and  traitors  in 
its  rear.  How  many  of  the  army  of  the 
Revolution  had  Washington's  spirit  and 
not  Gates'?  How  many  of  Grant's  men 
had  Lincoln's  spirit  and  needed  neither 
present  bounty  nor  hope  of  pensions  to 
keep  them  in  the  ranks  ?  Yet  what  pa- 
triot ever  needed  to  halt  in  his  patriotism 
till  his  mercenary  comrades  had  caught 
up  with  him  ?  Washington's  and  Lin- 
coln's kind  of  men  never  asked  whether 
they  were  a  majority  as  compared  with 
Gates'  and  Arnold's  men.  Washington 
never  dreamed  of  saying  to  Gates,  "  I  will 
renounce  my  ambitions  and  give  myself 
to  the  service  of  the  country,  provided 
you  will  do  the  same."  He  and  men  like 
him  simply  devoted  themselves,  never 
counting  the  cost  when  once  a  duty  com- 
manded them.  No  true  soldier  ever  did 
anything  less.  No  victory  would  ever  have 


162      THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

been    won    if   brave   men   waited    for    the 
skulkers. 

"No  care  for  cowards,  fight !  " 

Is  this,  then,  the  rule  of  war  and  is  it  not 
the  rule  of  civilization  ?  Was  it  the  law  of 
gentlemen  while  they  were  emerging  from 
barbarism,  and  is  it  not  the  eternal  law  of 
gentlemen  ?  Must  true  men  be  provided 
with  a  nice  social  scheme,  and  have  guaran- 
tees voted  by  unanimous  multitudes,  before 
they  deem  it  safe  to  do  the  divine  deeds  of 
men  ?  We  say  that  we  believe  in  God ;  we 
call  ourselves  his  sons ;  we  hold  this  to  be  a 
righteous  universe ;  must  we  then  see  to  it 
that  our  salaries  are  assured  before  we  dare 
to  practice  justice,  to  tell  the  fearless  truth, 
to  treat  men  as  our  brethren? 

I  have  used  a  parable.  I  have  drawn  les- 
sons from  the  stories  of  war.  But  war  is 
not  civilization ;  it  is  the  rough  scaffolding, 
or  false  bridge,  that  men  used  while  the 
lasting  archways  were  being  built.  Let  us 
proceed  to  tear  down  this  unsightly  scaf- 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  163 

folding.  True  civilizers  have  no  further  use 
for  it.  "  Ah  !  "  men  reply,  "  we  still  have 
need  for  war.  We  cannot  trust  men  as  we 
wish.  We  suspect  the  nations  over  the 
seas.  We  need  ironclads  to  defend  our 
commerce;  we  will  disarm  when  all  the 
world  agrees  to  do  the  same."  This  is  what 
the  world  has  said  to  every  advance  move- 
ment of  reform  or  enlightenment.  The 
world  was  never  ready,  or  will  be  ready,  to 
march  together  one  forward  step.  The 
world  always  calls  for  object  lessons  in  the 
one  or  the  few  who  dare  to  take  risks,  to 
set  the  banners  in  advance,  and  to  bid  the 
multitude  come  on.  The  Czar  will  never 
persuade  the  rival  nations  to  beat  their 
swords  into  pruning-hooks  on  a  given  day. 
A  single  nation  must  take  the  splendid 
venture  by  itself.  America  has  this  oppor- 
tunity. Let  America  say  to  the  world, 
"  Our  strength  is  in  justice  ;  we  wish  to  do 
no  wrong  to  any  people ;  we  are  friends  of 
all  nations ;  see  !  we  are  ready  to  adjudi- 
cate all  questions  by  the  methods  of  peace 


164     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

and  good  will."  Grant,  if  you  like,  that 
this  course  involves  risk.  It  involves  risk 
when  we  travel  without  carrying  weapons. 
Which  risk  is  more  noble  —  to  maintain 
toward  the  world  the  attitude  of  barbarians 
or  of  civilized  men  ? 

The  American  nation  are  not  going  to  de- 
cide at  once  and  by  an  easy  majority  to  put 
aside  the  militarism  of  thousands  of  years. 
It  is  not  yet  popular  to  vote  against  appro- 
priations for  the  army  and  navy,  and  for 
coast  defenses.  Wait,  the  cautious  say,  till 
the  millennium  draws  near.  So  the  cautious 
have  never  yet  grown  tired  of  saying.  The 
need  is  the  greater  of  men  and  women,  and 
specially  of  noble  youth,  committed  to  prin- 
ciples of  justice,  believers  in  civilization,  not 
to  say  Christianity,  fearless  of  what  people 
say,  outspoken  by  voice,  influence,  acts,  and 
votes,  with  the  spirit  of  gentlemen,  leaders 
of  a  new  and  saner  public  opinion  against 
the  old  giant  curse  of  militarism ;  and  not 
against  militarism  alone.  A  dozen  grand 
adventures  in  our  day  call  for  volunteers 


THE  SOLDIERLY  LIFE.  165 

who  will  stand  to  the  fore.     It  is  of  such  as 
these  that  Wordsworth  sings : 

"  Who,  with  a  toward  or  untoward  lot, 
Prosperous  or  adverse,  to  his  wish  or  not, 
Plays  in  the  many  games  of  life  that  one 
Where  what  he  most  doth  value  must  be  won ; 
Whom  neither  shape  of  danger  can  dismay, 
Nor  thought  of  tender  happiness  betray ; 
This  is  the  happy  warrior;  this  is  he, 
Whom  every  man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be." 


166     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 


CHAPTER    XL 

A   PRACTICAL  QUESTION. 

I  WANT  to  take  now  the  point  of  view  of 
the  man  who  calls  himself  "  practical."  He 
hears  what  poets  and  preachers  and  reform- 
ers say,  and  he  admires  their  ideas.  He 
goes  to  church  as  he  would  go  to  a  picture 
gallery;  here  seems  to  be  another  world 
from  that  in  which  he  dwells  and  works. 
He  is  rather  glad  that  there  are  poets  and 
orators,  that  there  is  a  realm  of  ideal  things 
which  a  tired  man  can  occasionally  visit. 
Who  will  deny  that  the  thought  of  a  divine 
universe  is  beautiful  and  restful  ? 

The  practical  man,  however,  does  not  take 
the  fine  thoughts  of  the  idealists  very  seri- 
ously. He  does  not  purpose  to  live  in  the 
realm  of  religion.  "The  real  world,"  he 
says  to  himself,  "  is  a  practical  world.  I 
face  conditions  and  facts,"  he  says,  "not 


A  PRACTICAL   QUESTION.  167 

theories.  The  world  in  which  I  live,  what- 
ever its  destiny  may  be,  is  pretty  barbarous 
yet ;  it  is  a  world  which  has  to  put  locks  on 
its  doors  and  policemen  on  its  street  cor- 
ners." "Besides,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "I 
must  earn  my  living;  I  must  support  my 
family ;  I  must  take  this  world 'as  I  find  it; 
I  must  adjust  myself  to  actual  men,  and  not 
to  the  life  of  angels."  The  practical  man  at 
times  is  tired  of  the  idealists.  They  ask 
him  to  do  impracticable  things;  they  chal- 
lenge him  to  take  daring  and  unpromising 
risks.  They  do  not  always  rest  his  mind 
when  now  and  then  they  appear  in  the  pul- 
pit; they  set  his  conscience  against  his  in- 
clinations, his  habits,  and  even  against  his 
cooler  judgment.  Sometimes  he  is  tempted 
to  despise  them  as  mere  dreamers ;  again  he 
suspects  that  they  are  only  "professionals," 
making  a  business  of  poetry,  philanthropy, 
and  religion,  as  he  himself  makes  a  business 
of  dealing  in  wheat  or  stocks. 

I  am  bound  to  have  sympathy  with  the 
difficulties  of   the   plain  practical   men.     I 


168     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

respect  their  questions,  which  deserve  a  care- 
ful answer.  I  do  not  wish  to  live  in  a  world  of 
dreams ;  I  share  in  the  characteristic  Anglo- 
Saxon  admiration  for  energy,  enterprise, 
achievement  —  the  wise  and  successful  con- 
duct of  affairs.  I  am  a  believer  in  a  religion 
that  is  either  good  now  in  this  earth,  or 
else,  if  it  is  not  usable  and  workable  here, 
has  for  me  no  promise  whatever.  My 
thought  of  a  divine  universe  embraces  all 
human  business,  the  relations  of  indus- 
try, of  society,  and  of  politics.  ...  I 
have  also  as  strong  a  sense  of  abhorrence  of 
professional  philanthropy  as  I  have  of  all 
forms  of  priestcraft.  The  "  unpardonable 
sin "  is  to  turn  art,  poetry,  ideals,  or  re- 
ligion into  traffic  and  lucre.  I  can,  there- 
fore, admit  no  valid  distinction  between  the 
men  of  religion  and  practical  men ;  I  can 
endure  no  aristocracy  of  professed  philan- 
thropists. I  preach  the  democratic  gospel, 
that  every  man  should  serve,  help,  and  love 
his  fellows.  If  this  is  not  practical  for  the 
wage-earner,  the  merchant,  and  the  states- 


A   PRACTICAL    QUESTION.  169 

man  I  doubt  if  it  is  practical  or  obligatory 
for  any  one. 

Let  us  clear  our  minds  as  to  what  we 
mean  by  ideals.  We  are  all  idealists,  so  far 
as  we  have  any  practical  art,  skill,  or  use. 
An  ideal  is  simply  an  intelligent  plan  or 
pattern.  The  ideal  is  that  which  ought  to 
be.  The  good  gardener  has  an  ideal  of  his 
garden ;  the  housekeeper  has  an  ideal  of 
good  domestic  service ;  the  merchant  has 
his  ideals  of  how  his  business  should  be  ad- 
vanced ;  the  inventor  is  forever  working  out 
ideals  of  machinery  or  electrical  appliances ; 
the  painter,  the  sculptor,  the  architect,  and 
the  engineer  work  by  ideal  plans.  We  speak 
of  the  poet's  or  artist's  dream.  Lo  !  what  he 
dreams  is  presently  incarnated  in  marble  or  in 
literature  —  in  "Paradise  Lost,"  or  in  the 
"Minute  Man"  at  Concord.  Has  a  man 
no  plan  or  ideal  of  his  day's  work  ?  Then  you 
must  give  him  a  master ;  he  is  the  most  un- 
practical of  men.  Who  has  the  most  far- 
reaching  plans?  Who  is  the  man  of  the 
architectonic  mind?  You  make  him  the 


170     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

captain   of    industries,    the    commander   of 
armies,  the  king  among  men. 

Yes,  some  one  says,  but  are  not  the  ideals 
of  religion  of  a  different  order  ?  The  ideals 
of  a  reasonable  and  civilized  religion,  I  an- 
swer, are  the  plans  and  patterns  of  what 
ought  to  be  in  human  society.  Whoever 
first  laid  down  the  Ten  Commandments  was 
an  idealist  statesman.  Who  finds  fault 
with  his  plan?  Moral  and  spiritual  ideals 
are  not  dreams  for  angels  in  Heaven ;  they 
are  actual  working  plans  for  the  higher  life 
of  man  here  and  now.  If  they  are  not  work- 
ing plans,  good  for  your  homes,  good  for 
education,  good  foi5  neighbors  wherewith  to 
live  happily  together,  good  for  workers  and 
employers,  good  for  cities,  good  for  the 
family  of  nations,  —  then  I,  for  one,  have  no 
use  for  them.  The  architect's  ideal  is  for  a 
house  or  a  cathedral ;  the  landscape  garden- 
er's ideal  or  plan  is  for  a  park.  These  are 
ideals  for  man's  tools  or  pleasures,  for  parts 
of  his  life.  Moses',  Jesus',  Paul's,  Channing's 
ideal  is  for  human  life  as  a  whole,  for  the 


A   PRACTICAL   QUESTION.  171 

fulfillment  of  his  happiness.  Will  any  one 
deny  that  it  is  practical  to  plan  for  the  wel- 
fare of  cities,  states,  nations,  and  indeed  for 
all  humanity  ? 

This  is  not  saying  that  there  are  no  fool- 
ish idealists,  in  other  words,  foolish  archi- 
tects, careless  engineers,  bad  artists,  short- 
sighted politicians,  reckless  promoters  of 
mines,  banks,  and  trusts.  The  good  planner 
or  idealist  takes  account  of  all  the  facts, 
counts  the  cost  of  his  enterprise,  adjusts 
himself  to  each  new  situation,  and  studies 
the  strength  of  material,  not  least  of  all,  the 
human  material  with  which  he  must  work. 
The  average  man  takes  short  views ;  the 
animal  takes  no  views  at  all.  Shall  we  not 
say  that  the  good  idealist  takes  long  views  ? 
He  plans  not  for  to-day  or  to-morrow  merely, 
but  for  the  next  year,  and  the  next  century. 
What  can  you  desire  more  than  to  plan,  de- 
sign, and  construct  somewhat  as  God  does  ? 
The  good  idealist  is  the  good  and  true 
thinker,  who  thinks  before  he  executes, 
plans  before  he  builds. 


172     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Many  seem  to  suppose  that  as  soon  as  an 
idealist  conceives  an  idea  he  must  at  once 
proceed  as  if  the  idea  had  been  realized. 
As  if  the  painter  should  dream  about  his 
paintings,  but  never  touch  his  brush  to  the 
canvas ;  as  if  the  sculptor  should  live  in 
the  realm  of  beauty  without  ever  putting 
his  chisel  to  the  marble !  So  I  suppose  in- 
nocent souls  might  dream  of  the  millennium 
and  play  that  it  had  arrived !  They  might 
take  the  bolts  off  their  doors ;  they  might 
lend  or  give  their  money  to  any  one  who 
asks ;  they  might  never  "  resist  evil,"  or 
defend  even  a  child  from  the  assault  of  a 
ruffian  or  a  maniac  ;  they  might  not  consent 
to  earn  or  hold  property.  Thus  Count 
Tolstoi  is  often  held  up  as  an  example  of 
the  true  and  consistent  idealist. 

Ask  what  the  wise  manager  does  in  clear- 
ing the  wilderness,  in  building  houses,  in 
laying  out  railroads,  and  then  see  if  the 
moral  and  spiritual  idealist  does  not  proceed 
in  exactly  the  same  manner.  A  colonist,  for 
example,  goes  into  the  wilderness  to  estab- 


A   PRACTICAL    QUESTION.  173 

lish  a  home.  He  begins  with  a  dream,  if  you 
please.  He  sees  in  his  dream  the  home  of 
the  future,  the  commodious  house,  the 
smooth  lawn,  the  well-filled  barns,  broad 
fields  of  corn  and  wheat,  and  a  prosperous 
commonwealth.  Does  he  therefore  sit  down 
as  if  the  dream  were  true  ?  Not  unless  he  is 
a  fool  and  only  a  dreamer.  Around  him  is  a 
howling  wilderness,  wild  creatures  and  wild 
men,  endless  call  for  labor  and  patience,  — 
in  this  day  of  small  things.  His  dream  is 
the  pattern  toward  which  he  labors.  He 
runs  no  lawn-mower  over  the  burnt  stumps 
in  front  of  his  little  log  hut,  but  one  by  one 
he  roots  the  stumps  out,  and  year  by  year  he 
widens  the  clearing  in  the  forest.  This  is 
the  parable  of  the  everlasting  practical  task 
of  the  wise  idealist. 

Take  another  parable.  A  new  union 
terminal  station  had  to  be  built  for  several 
railways  in  one  of  our  great  cities.  All  the 
tracks  of  these  roads  had  to  be  relocated, 
while  the  vast  freight  and  passenger  traffic 
went  on  uninterrupted.  Suppose  yourself 


174     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

for  a  moment  to  have  been  one  of  the  divis- 
ion superintendents  of  the  new  work.  The 
lookers-on  tell  you  that  you  have  undertaken 
an  impossible  task.  They  do  not  see  how 
the  new  tracks  can  ever  be  relaid  without 
for  one  day  stopping  the  business  of  the 
railways.  The  work  is  beset  with  difficulties 
and  disappointments  ;  contractors  are  unable 
always  to  come  to  time  with  their  brick  and 
mortar  and  metal;  quicksands  possibly  ap- 
pear in  the  excavations.  You  dream  of  the 
finished  work ;  you  foresee  its  comfort  and 
convenience.  But  you  never  act  for  a  mo- 
ment as  if  the  plans  had  already  been  car- 
ried out ;  you  will  not  yet  let  the  cars  pass 
over  the  new  tracks;  you  will  not  trust 
freight  upon  the  incomplete  bridges  ;  every- 
thing so  far  is  provisional.  Meanwhile  you 
work  day  and  night ;  you  urge  onward 
the  laggard  contractors ;  if  pieces  of  road- 
way are  behindhand  you  put  on  extra  men ; 
you  meet  emergencies  with  tireless  patience 
and  invention.  This  is  good  idealism. 
This  present  world,  as  it  now  is,  full  of 


A   PRACTICAL    QUESTION.  175 

savage  men,  only  half  civilized  even  in  Ber- 
lin, Paris,  London,  Washington,  or  New 
York,  still  ravaged  by  man's  avarice  and 
hate,  with  primitive  volcanic  passions  liable 
any  day  to  rise  into  active  eruption,  is  the 
standing  problem  for  the  idealist.  It  is  the 
same  kind  of  problem  for  the  lover  of  law 
and  order,  the  builder  of  civilization,  as  the 
wilderness  presents  to  the  colonist,  as  the 
new  Nicaragua  canal  will  be  to  its  promoters, 
engineers,  and  contractors.  It  is  a  work 
not  only  to  be  imagined  and  planned,  but 
also  to  be  executed.  There  are  those  who 
hold  aloof  from  the  task,  and  call  this  too 
vile  a  world  to  touch.  They  complain  that 
they  cannot  engage  in  human  business  with- 
out tainting  their  souls  and  becoming  ac- 
complices in  other  men's  greed  and  oppres- 
sion ;  they  tell  us  that  no  one  can  undertake 
practical  politics  without  compromise  and 
corruption.  They  say  that  the  world  is  not 
yet  ripe  for  the  application  of  their  ideals. 
Sometimes  they  run  away  from  the  world 
altogether  and  grieve  over  its  wickedness; 


176     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

sometimes  they  make  it  their  business  to  ex- 
ploit and  reveal  its  evil  ways ;  sometimes, 
most  pathetic  of  all,  they  turn  their  backs 
on  their  visions,  and  try  to  be  "  practical," 
like  those  who  have  never  seen  any  ideals, 
and  they  end  by  becoming  cynical  and  un- 
scrupulous. The  true  idealist  never  runs 
away  from  the  world,  never  despairs  of  his 
task,  never  consents  to  play  the  part  of  a 
coward  or  traitor,  never  ceases  his  attempt 
to  realize  his  vision,  that  is,  to  carry  out 
his  plan. 

The  world,  as  it  is,  is  like  the  orange  tree. 
There  is  fruit  on  the  tree  at  one  and  the 
same  time  in  all  stages  of  development. 
There  are  blossoms,  and  green  fruit,  and 
here  and  there  a  ripe  and  golden  orange. 
Suppose  that  you  are  a  drop  of  the  life  sap 
in  the  tree,  charged  to  carry  your  vigor 
wherever  you  are  bidden  to  go.  You  are 
sent  to  the  ripe,  luscious  fruit  to  add  one 
more  drop  of  sweetness  to  it ;  or  you  are 
sent  to  help  ripen  fruit  which  is  already 
beginning  to  turn  yellow ;  or  you  are  sent  to 


A   PRACTICAL   QUESTION.  177 

the  hard  green  fruit  to  soften  and  ripen  it ; 
or  you  are  sent  to  the  youngest  blossom  on 
the  tree,  where  your  coming  means  the  set- 
ting of  the  fruit.  There  is  no  difference  in 
the  nature  of  your  task,  wherever  you  go. 
You  suffer  no  compromise  when  you  enter 
into  the  greenness  and  crudity  of  the  half- 
formed  oranges ;  you  abate  nothing  from 
your  ideal  when  you  only  succeed  in  making 
the  sourness  a  little  less;  the  one  law  of 
your  being  is  to  give  your  single  drop  of 
life  toward  making  the  sweetest  possible 
orange.  Your  life  is  not  lessened  or  hurt 
because  you  are  sent  to  be  a  pioneer  in  the 
divine  work  of  making  green  fruit  ripe. 

Is  there  no  compromise,  some  one  may 
ask,  in  taking  up  grimy  work  and  associat- 
ing with  all  kinds  of  comrades  ?  Does  one 
not  sometimes  have  to  work  alongside  of 
rogues  and  miscreants?  It  is  not  com- 
promise, I  answer,  to  live  in  the  world  as  it 
is  —  God's  growing  orange  tree.  There  is 
no  compromise  in  living  a  friendly  life 
towards  all  men,  in  a  school  with  dull  and 


178     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

bad  scholars,  in  a  mill  or  factory  with  ineffi- 
cient workmen,  in  a  bank  or  counting-room 
with  careless  clerks,  in  politics  or  in  society 
with  the  ambitious,  the  vulgar,  and  the 
selfish.  While  you  remain  true,  faithful, 
honorable,  good  tempered,  high  minded,  and 
friendly,  while  you  seek  the  ends  for  which 
you  are  bidden  to  live,  your  soul  can  never 
be  tainted  because  others  do  not  yet  see  or 
seek  the  same  ends.  But  compromise  begins 
when  you  cease  to  tell  the  truth,  or  to  do 
justice,  or  to  do  faithful  service,  when  you 
stoop  from  the  stature  of  your  manhood  to 
cowardice  or  selfishness. 

I  can  imagine  a  multitude  of  men  pulling 
a  great  load  together.  There  is  a  goal  to 
which  the  load  must  be  brought ;  there  is  a 
straight  road  in  which  it  must  be  kept.  I 
can  imagine  some  of  the  men,  careless  of 
their  work,  swaying  from  side  to  side ;  others 
dropping  their  hold  on  the  rope  and  forsak- 
ing their  work ;  others  attempting  to  delay 
the  work,  or  even  to  turn  the  load  in  another 
direction.  The  actual  progress  of  the  load 


A   PRACTICAL    QUESTION.  179 

is  the  resultant  of  the  forces  of  all  the  men, 
the  negligent,  the  idle,  the  half-hearted,  the 
recalcitrant,  as  well  as  the  earnest  and  the 
faithful.  It  is  compromise  if  I  too  drop  my 
hold  on  the  rope,  or  if  I  yield  to  the  swaying 
forces  which  hinder  the  forward  motion.  It 
is  no  compromise,  provided  I  pull  with  all 
my  might  to  keep  the  load  in  the  straight 
road.  It  is  not  my  fault  even  if  for  a  time 
the  rope  is  swayed  out  of  the  true  line, 
provided  I  still  keep  my  direction.  So  with 
the  great  car  of  human  progress,  my  one  ef- 
fort is  to  pull  with  all  my  might,  and  to 
keep  the  rope  as  straight  as  I  can.  The 
time  never  can  be  when  I  need  to  give  up 
my  task,  or  again,  to  consent  to  turn  with 
the  swaying  multitude  to  the  right  or  the 
left  to  do  evil. 

The  nineteenth  century  has  been  the  rich- 
est in  the  annals  of  mankind  in  the  story 
of  its  great  idealists.  No  lesson  of  the  cen- 
tury has  been  more  impressive  than  the 
fact  that  the  idealist  is  the  most  practical 
man  in  the  world.  In  other  words,  the  most 


180     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

practical  men  of  the  century  have  proved  to 
be  men  who  worked  toward  ideal  ends. 
Read  the  biographies  of  the  illustrious  men 
who  have  made  the  character  of  the  century 
—  merchants,  manufacturers,  inventors,  voy- 
agers, discoverers,  the  men  of  science,  the 
poets,  the  thinkers,  statesmen,  administra- 
tors, and  educators.  There  were  never  so 
many  biographies  written  in  a  hundred  years 
before.  The  characteristic  of  a  remarkable 
number  of  them  is  that  the  men  and  women 
whose  lives  are  described  thought  and  acted 
on  the  long  lines  of  truth,  justice,  fidelity, 
good  will,  and  humanity.  Their  practical 
efficiency  can  be  seen  to  spring  out  of  their 
idealism.  To  a  large  degree  they  have  ap- 
preciated that  their  work  was  a  part  of  a 
universal  order ;  they  have  not  sought  mere 
personal  or  selfish  success,  but  the  promotion 
of  learning,  the  increase  of  human  happi- 
ness, the  enlargement  of  human  welfare,  the 
achievement  of  liberty,  the  attainment  of  a 
lasting  civilization.  Gladstone,  John  Bright, 
Lord  Lawrence,  Livingstone,  Montefiore, 


A   PRACTICAL   QUESTION.  181 

Darwin,  Huxley,  General  Gordon,  Tenny- 
son and  the  Brownings,  Martineau  and  the 
Arnolds,  Cavour,  Mazzini,  Garibaldi ;  Lafay- 
ette, Victor  Hugo,  Renan  ;  Schleiermacher, 
Mendelssohn,  Lotze,  and  a  procession  of 
German  scholars,  scientists,  and  lovers  of 
truth ;  Swiss  political  thinkers,  and  men  of 
affairs,  who  have  made  the  institutions  of 
their  little  country  the  model  for  the  world ; 
Channing  and  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Lowell, 
and  Whittier,  Garrison  and  the  victorious 
heroes  of  the  conflict  with  human  slavery, 
Charles  Brace  and  Armstrong,  —  how  can 
we  begin  to  recount  the  names  of  the  men 
and  women  who  would  surely,  like  Abou 
Ben  Adhem,  bid  the  recording  angel  to 
write : 

" .     .     .     I  pray  thee,  then, 
Write  me  as  one  that  loves  his  fellow-men." 

The  wonder  and  beauty  of  their  lives  is 
that  to  a  marvelous  extent  they  achieved 
what  even  the  world's  short  sight  accounts 
success.  Not  seeking  anything  for  them- 


182     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

selves,  only  obeying  the  law  which  bids  men 
give,  utter  themselves,  live,  and  serve  —  lo ! 
these  men  had  what  they  did  not  seek : 
friends,  honors,  fame,  the  love  and  confi- 
dence of  their  fellows.  Surely  this  must  be 
a  divine  world  wherein  they  succeed  best, 
and  alone  have  permanent  success,  who  with 
most  utter  loyalty  follow  ideal  and  divine 
ends ;  who  speak  truth  without  fear,  per- 
form duty  by  an  inward  compulsion,  and 
make  their  business  the  service  of  humanity. 
Who,  then,  shall  we  say  is  the  practical  man 
of  affairs,  whom  the  new  century  demands 
as  its  chosen  leader  and  helper?  It  is  the 
upright,  outspoken,  noble,  and  generous 
gentleman,  the  friend  and  lover  of  men,  co- 
worker  with  God. 


WHAT  IS   THE   USE  f  183 


CHAPTER  XII. 

WHAT   IS   THE   USE? 

THIS  is  the  question  of  doubt  and  pessi- 
mism. It  arises  out  of  moods  of  weariness 
and  physical  depression.  It  comes  at  times 
in  the  reaction  after  success  and  victory. 
Children  often  ask  it  as  well  as  grown  men. 
Sensualists  ask  it,  like  the  Solomon  of  Ec- 
clesiastes,  of  the  vanity  of  pleasures  and  lux- 
uries which  they  ought  never  to  have  had. 
Saints  and  heroes  have  often  asked  it  in 
bitterness  of  spirit  in  their  lonely  Gethsem- 
anes :  What  is  the  use  ? 

You  may  be  sure  that  Columbus'  men 
often  asked  this  question  as  they  pushed 
their  venturesome  way  toward  the  unknown 
edge  of  the  earth.  Did  not  the  master's 
stout  heart  ever  doubt  whether  he  should 
see  Spain  again?  The  little  company  on 
the  "  Mayflower  "  must  have  asked  the  sor- 


184     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

rowful  question,  as  "  days,  weeks,  and  months 
passed  by,  and  winter  overtook  them  on 
the  deep,"  and  many  a  time  thereafter,  while 
death  hewed  down  their  ranks  in  the  land 
of  their  exile.  What  use  was  it  to  suffer 
hunger  and  cold  and  the  ravages  of  disease  ? 
The  little  army  at  Valley  Forge  must  have 
asked  the  same  question  while  they  marked 
the  snow  with  their  bleeding  feet.  Did  not 
their  great  commander  himself  sometimes 
wonder:  What  is  the  use?  In  the  long 
Civil  War  in  the  North  and  the  South, 
homesick  men  at  the  front  and  anxious 
women  in  lonely  farmhouses  asked  this 
question :  "  What  is  the  use  ?  "  When  the 
lesson  is  not  yet  learned,  when  the  play  has 
not  been  acted,  when  work  turns  into  fatigue, 
and  hope  is  chilled,  the  human  nature  in  us 
easily  droops  toward  doubt  and  despondency. 
Was  harvest  ever  rightfully  earned,  was  suc- 
cess or  victory  ever  won,  except  by  men 
who  had  asked :  What  is  the  use  ? 

The  question,  what   is  the  use?   implies 
intelligence.     Because  we  are  men  and  not 


WHAT  IS   THE   USE f  185 

brutes,  an  infinite  discontent  presses  upon 
us,  and  never  will  leave  us  till  we  are  as- 
sured that  what  we  do  is  of  use.  For  there 
are  things  that  are  of  no  use,  except  only 
as  waste  and  pain  and  fever  are  of  use  to 
warn  men  and  urge  them  to  obey  the  laws 
of  life. 

There  are  schools  in  New  York  City 
which  require  as  the  price  of  a  boy's  tuition 
as  much  as  would  provide  eight  or  ten 
scholarships  in  certain  colleges.  Suppose 
one  of  the  boys  on  whom  this  costly  culture 
is  lavished  is  lazy  and  idle,  dawdles  through 
his  tasks  and  never  learns  how  to  study  or  to 
think, — what  is  the  use  in  wasting  money 
on  such  boys  as  this?  Suppose  the  boy 
goes  to  the  university,  and  spends  every 
year  more  than  two,  three,  five,  or  more 
skilled  workmen  can  earn  —  being  carried, 
as  it  were,  on  the  backs  of  a  troop  of  men ; 
suppose  he  never  wakes  up  to  the  duties  and 
obligations  which  match  his  princely  living, 
and  leaves  his  college  as  he  entered  it,  an 
idler  and  lounger,  a  university  man  without 


186     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

ever  having  caught  sight  of  what  a  divine 
universe  he  is  a  citizen,  —  what  is  the  use  of 
such  men  as  this  in  America  ? 

A  certain  university  club  holds  banquets 
which  cost  eight  dollars  for  each  plate.  This 
is  in  celebration  of  the  college  whose  famous 
motto  is  Christo  et  Ecclesice  !  What  is  the 
use  of  this  gilded  extravagance  in  mere  eat- 
ing and  drinking  ?  What  is  the  use  in  thus 
disfellowshipping  all  college  men  of  modest 
income  ?  Is  this  the  fruit  of  modern  educa- 
tion? 

A  hundred  thousand  Americans  are  said 
to  spend  abroad  every  year  a  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  There  are  fine  possibilities 
in  foreign  travel ;  our  people  may  learn  mod- 
esty and  promote  international  good  will; 
they  may  return  filled  with  a  new  sense  of 
the  responsibility  which  they  owe  in  return 
for  their  splendid  enjoyments.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  those  who  come  home  arro- 
gant, conceited,  no  more  generous,  no  better 
citizens  for  all  that  they  have  spent  upon 
their  own  pleasures  ?  What  is  the  use 


WHAT  IS   THE    USE?  187 

of  sending  such  spendthrift  Americans 
abroad  ? 

What  is  the  use  of  the  eight  hundred 
millions  that  we  in  the  United  States  pour 
out  every  year  for  alcoholic  drinks?  And 
the  vast  sum  besides  that  goes  up  in  smoke  ? 
What  moiety  of  this  colossal  tribute  to  men's 
self-indulgence  can  be  justified  at  all  ?  What 
lover  of  his  country,  seeing  the  immense 
need  of  money  wherewith  to  do  the  work  of 
humanity,  of  education,  of  civilization,  can 
bear  to  add  anything  to  these  gigantic  forms 
of  extravagance  ? 

What  shall  we  say  of  the  billions  that  go 
to  maintain  the  military  establishments  of 
"  Christendom  "  ?  What  is  the  use  of  burn- 
ing all  this  treasure,  not  to  speak  of  sacrific- 
ing human  lives,  on  the  altars  of  the  Moloch 
of  barbarism  ?  A  people  who  purpose  to  do 
justice,  who  covet  nothing  that  does  not 
belong  to  them,  surely  need  not  live  in  con- 
stant and  ruinous  fear  and  suspicion  of  other 
peoples. 

I  have  intimated  that  there  are  transcen- 


188     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

dent  values.  It  is  because  we  possess  an 
ideal  standard  of  value  that  we  question 
the  use  of  certain  base  or  doubtful  things. 
It  was  of  use  that  early  men,  Moses 
and  Solon,  and  unknown  Egyptians  before 
them,  laid  down  the  foundations  of  law  011 
which  all  human  institutions  and  govern- 
ments must  be  built.  It  was  of  use  that 
brave  men  waged  war,  fierce  though  it  was, 
against  time-honored  systems  of  cruel  and 
lustful  idolatry,  and  proclaimed  the  one  God 
against  the  worshippers  of  Baal  and  Ashta- 
roth.  It  was  doubtless  of  use  that  lonely 
Hebrew  prophets  stood  up  against  the  op- 
pression and  avarice  of  their  nobles  and 
defended  the  rights  of  the  poor.  We  feel 
to-day  the  impulse  of  their  inspiration ;  we 
still  quote  their  ringing  words  of  faith  in 
the  coming  kingdom  of  righteousness. 

The  whole  world  agrees  that  it  was  of  use 
that  a  Galilean  carpenter  lived  his  brief  life 
and  died  an  ignominious  death.  His  name 
has  become  symbolic  of  a  new  order  or  type 
of  humanity  —  the  men  of  good  will. 


WHAT  IS   THE   USE?  189 

Modern  civilization  follows  slowly  in  the 
track  of  the  man,  who  came,  not  to  get  but 
to  give,  not  to  be  paid  or  praised  or  re- 
warded, but  to  achieve  and  accomplish,  not 
even  to  be  loved,  least  of  all  to  be  wor- 
shipped, but  to  love  and  to  do  the  deeds  that 
love  bids.  This  is  the  ideal  man  to  whom 
the  race  now  looks.  We  are  just  now  at 
last  learning  not  merely  to  look  backward 
to  a  figure  of  history,  but  forward  to  the 
development  of  actual  men  and  women 
of  the  same  beautiful  order.  Why  do  we 
look  back  to  ideals  in  the  past,  unless  we 
move  on  toward  the  highest  ideals  of  the 
future  ? 

It  was  of  use  that  a  young  Italian  in 
Assissi,  who  had  never  done  a  stroke  of 
honest  work,  waked  up  one  day  to  see  the 
needs  of  the  poor,  and  began  to  preach  the 
old  forgotten  gospel  of  service  and  brother- 
hood. All  Europe  and  distant  England 
heard  of  this  good  Francis.  His  humble  lay 
preachers  stirred  the  fire  of  humanity  in 
men's  hearts.  English  Lollards,  who  helped 


190     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

make  American   Puritans,  drew  moral  life 
from  this  single  man's  zeal  and  love. 

The  sorrows  and  pains  of  the  mothers 
who  bore  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Go- 
ethe, Channing  and  Martineau,  Lucretia 
Mott  and  Abraham  Lincoln,  were  doubtless 
of  use.  Shall  we  stop  with  the  mothers  of 
illustrious  men  and  women?  Ask  the  mil- 
lions of  good  mothers  who  have  borne  chil- 
dren, and  lost  some  of  them  in  childhood,  and 
lost  others  again  in  the  promise  of  youth,  or 
have  seen  them  go  from  their  faces  to  make 
homes  in  the  ends  of  the  earth  —  ask  them 
if  all  this  pain  and  sorrow  were  worth  while  ! 
We  seem  to  hear  a  chorus  of  answers  : 
"  Yes !  It  was  infinitely  worth  while  to 
have  had  our  children's  love  and  smiles  — 
the  eternal  love-message  of  God."  Who 
was  ever  poorer  for  having  borne  the  sacred 
cost  of  love?  The  fact  is,  no  sane  mind 
ever  doubts  that  certain  divine  and  price- 
less .qualities,  truth,  justice,  faithfulness, 
loyalty,  love,  are  of  use  ;  that  a  certain  type 
of  life  which  bears  the  fruitage  of  these  qual- 


WHAT  IS   THE   USE?  191 

ities  is  of  use  ;  that  there  have  been  lives  in 
this  world  of  infinite  worth. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  this  human  life 
is  worthless  and  empty,  unless  the  hope  of 
immortality  is  added.  The  fact  is,  there 
come  in  this  present  life  scenes  of  such  won- 
der and  beauty,  ideals  and  visions  so  lovely, 
interests  so  immense  and  dramatic,  hours  of 
rest  and  peace  so  unfathomable,  activities  so 
divine  as  if  the  eternal  power  throbbed  in  us, 
moments  of  ecstasy  so  unspeakable,  such  a 
sense  of  rhythm,  harmony,  and  music,  as 
if  we  were  let  into  the  presence  chamber  of 
the  Almighty,  that  if  annihilation  yawned 
at  our  feet  we  should  perforce  say:  "It 
has  been  well."  Would  we  exchange  one 
of  these  radiant  moments  for  an  endless 
paradise  of  mere  sensuous  existence  ?  Have 
we  not  known  men  and  women  who  have 
taken  what  they  thought  the  risks  of  hell 
for  the  sake  of  truth  or  love?  The  myth 
was  that  Prometheus  stole  the  sacred  fire 
and  suffered  seons  of  torture.  Did  he 
regret  that  he  had  held  the  divine  forces 


192     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

and  lived  as  a  god,  though  only  for  a  brief 
day?  But  the  scenes,  the  interests,  the  vis- 
ions, the  days  and  hours  of  which  I  speak, 
do  not  forebode  hell,  or  point  the  way  of  an- 
nihilation ;  they  are  incredible  in  a  godless 
world,  they  tell  us  of  an  infinite  nature  in 
us,  they  bring  us  into  the  presence  of  God 
and  give  us  the  foregleam  of  his  own  eter- 
nity. I  speak  of  facts  of  human  experience, 
marvelously  lighting  up  the  mystery  of  exis- 
tence. The  infinite  element  in  human  life 
ever  and  anon  flames  up.  The  stress  of  great 
burdens,  duties,  responsibilities,  to  which 
the  soul  yields  itself,  stirs  it  into  flame. 

The  master  question  of  philosophy  and 
religion  —  What  shall  we  make  of  our  uni- 
verse ?  What  use  is  it  ?  —  is  just  like  the 
little  question  of  each  individual  life.  It 
comes  from  the  same  root.  It  is  answered 
in  the  same  way.  I  ask,  in  despair,  "  What 
am  I  good  for?  "  when  I  fix  my  eyes  on  the 
cost  and  toil  of  life,  without  seeing  what  the 
cost  goes  to  purchase.  The  cure  of  my  pes- 
simism is  to  count  up  my  assets.  I  do  not 


WHAT  IS  THE   USE  *  193 

mean  by  "assets,"  houses  and  money  and 
titles.  No  man  ever  rested  his  soul  by  look- 
ing at  money  values.  I  mean  those  spiritual 
assets  that  constitute  my  manhood.  So  my 
doubt  about  the  world,  which  comes  from 
seeing  the  mass  of  all  the  toil  and  misery, 
the  expense  and  outgo,  the  struggle  and  the 
war,  has  its  cure  as  soon  as  we  begin  to 
count  up  the  world's  spiritual  assets.  The 
census  returns  give  us  no  answer  to  our  pes- 
simism. But  we  mass  the  deeds  of  heroism, 
the  courage,  the  faith,  the  hope,  the  growing 
sympathy  and  love ;  we  pass  in  review  the 
procession  of  the  true-hearted  men  and  the 
good  women  of  all  times.  Have  we  not 
known  some  of  them — the  men  of  infinite 
trustworthiness,  "  the  true  children  of  God  "  ? 
Our  libraries  are  full  of  psalms  and  hymns, 
poems  and  prayers,  histofy  and  prophecy. 
Lo !  as  we  read,  the  mystery  of  chaos  and 
evil  rolls  back,  as  if  God  had  spoken  :  "  Let 
there  be  light."  Before  the  first  apple  tree 
that  bursts  into  blossom  in  May  the  wintry 
pessimism  of  the  whole  country-side  passes 


194     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

away.  So  before  the  smile  of  true  love 
chaos  itself  begins  to  be  penetrated  by  the 
signs  of  the  coming  order. 

Please  observe  that  our  times  of  depres- 
sion are  not,  as  a  rule,  while  we  are  actually 
at  our  work.  We  ask,  "  What  is  the  use  ?  " 
when  we  survey  life  from  a  distance,  when 
we  have  not  taken  up  our  task,  or  when  we 
have  dropped  it,  —  when  the  trolley  is  off  the 
wire.  The  idlers  are  the  pessimists.  If  I 
am  ignorant  I  can  see  no  use  in  spending 
time  and  money  for  schools.  If  I  have 
never  given  attention  to  music  I  cannot 
understand  my  friend's  enthusiasm  over 
symphony  concerts  and  the  opera.  If  my 
honor  has  never  cost  me  anything  I  set 
little  value  upon  conscience.  If  I  do  not 
take  the  trouble  to  vote  I  cannot  easily  see 
what  the  use  is  in  advocating  the  Australian 
ballot  or  civil-service  reform.  If  I  have 
never  given  a  dollar  to  help  my  fellows  I 
cannot  understand  what  use  it  is  to  send 
money  out  of  the  country  to  starving  India. 


WHAT  IS    THE    USE?  195 

If  I  rarely  or  never  go  to  church  I  join  those 
who  scoff  at  religion. 

But  change  all  this.  Suppose  you  are 
earning  your  way  through  college :  you  can 
hardly  now  get  education  enough.  Suppose 
you  have  saved  money  to  buy  a  season 
ticket  to  the  symphony  concert :  the  more 
you  go,  the  more  you  want  to  continue  to 
go  every  winter.  Suppose  you  have  become 
poor  for  the  sake  of  keeping  your  honor: 
you  understand  now  what  it  means  to 
"  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness  ;  " 
you  grudge  no  sacrifice  that  honor  de- 
mands. Suppose  you  have  taken  the  hands 
of  the  reformers  and  the  lovers  of  men  ;  sup- 
pose you  have  helped  them  with  your  money 
and  your  time :  you  cease  to  have  any  doubt 
about  the  use  of  the  work  that  Jacob  Riis 
and  Carl  Schurz  and  Jane  Addams  and 
Booker  Washington  are  doing.  Those  never 
despair  who  are  doing  the  hardest  work, 
whose  trolley  is  always  on  the  wire.  Those 
whose  life  is  to  give  their  utmost  measure 
of  human  service  are  not  pessimists.  Is 


196     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

not  this  proof  enough  that  the  secret  of  life 
is  not  to  get  but  to  give  ? 

This  is  no  longer  the  doctrine  of  preachers 
only,  speaking  conventional  words  in  a 
church.  It  is  coming  to  be  the  settled  word 
of  experience  and  life.  It  is  the  message  of 
the  men  of  action.  Great  educators,  like 
President  Eliot  and  President  Jordan,  take  it 
up.  Do  you  want  the  happy  life  ?  they  ask. 
See  to  it,  then,  they  urge,  that  you  give  your 
life  to  the  largest  and  noblest  uses  of  human 
society.  Exorcise  the  mercenary  spirit  from 
your  acts.  Live  your  life  in  the  spirit  of 
the  gentleman,  high-minded,  untiring,  gener- 
ous, public-spirited,  dutiful,  fearless  of 
danger,  hopeful  of  good.  No  one  shall  ever 
doubt  your  use  in  the  world.  You  shall 
never  doubt  your  own  use.  While  the  elec- 
tric power  is  on,  and  the  arc  light  shines, 
there  is  no  doubt  what  the  light  is  good  for. 


MEMENTO  MORI.  197 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

MEMENTO  MORI. 

IT  is  my  wish  in  this  chapter  not  merely 
to  speak  of  the  mystery  of  death,  but  to 
trace  the  profound  law  that  underlies,  and 
illumines  also,  the  whole  sorrowful  side  of 
human  life.  Can  religion  assuage  and  en- 
noble suffering  and  turn  pain  into  the  terms 
of  life  and  hope?  Can  it  do  this  without 
superstition  or  delusion?  Can  it  do  this 
and  remain  quite  reasonable  and  intelligent  ? 
Can  it  have  a  gospel  for  sufferers,  which 
shall  also  be  a  gospel  to  the  well  and  strong  ? 
These  questions  afford  the  test  of  a  true  and 
sane  religion. 

The  stoics  held  it  to  be  childish  to  rule 
death  out  of  their  thoughts.  There  is  a 
tremendous  range  of  stern  facts  which,  like 
the  reefs  and  shoals  in  the  course  of  the 
navigator,  ought  to  be  accounted  for  and 


198     TEE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

laid  down  on  the  chart  of  life.  No  man 
should  ever  be  overtaken  unawares  by  evil. 
Christianity  erected  a  worship  of  one  who 
died  on  a  cross.  Millions  every  year  set 
apart  a  stated  Lenten  season  for  the  celebra- 
tion of  austerities  and  the  commemoration  of 
"  the  man  of  sorrows."  By  a  strange  para- 
dox the  day  on  which  he  died  is  called 
"  Good  Friday,"  as  if  to  emphasize  by  a  per- 
petual object  lesson  the  word  of  the  poet 
Sophocles  that  "  pain  is  gain."  The  men 
and  women  of  Puritan  ancestry  seem  often 
to  have  received  by  a  sort  of  blood  in- 
heritance an  oppressive  sense  of  the  insepar- 
ableness  of  human  life  from  sacrifice.  In  a 
recent  story,  "  Henry  Worthington,  Idealist," 
the  interest  partly  turns  upon  the  exagger- 
ated foreboding  of  the  heroine  that  her  life 
is  destined  to  sorrow ;  and  though  the  story 
ends  well  enough,  the  author  certainly  justi- 
fies the  old  motto  that  "  the  course  of  true 
love  never  runs  smooth."  Many  young 
people  have  this  almost  superstitious  dread 
of  the  mystery  of  sorrow.  When  it  comes 


MEMENTO   MORI.  199 

to  them  they  are  overwhelmed,  having  no 
clue  to  understand  it. 

The  element  of  sorrow  or  pain  seems  to 
be  in  the  warp  and  woof  of  things.  It  must 
be  more  or  less  in  the  lot  of  all  of  us.  It  is 
in  the  material  out  of  which  the  fabric  of 
life  is  wrought.  They  used  to  teach  that  it 
came  from  sin,  death  being  the  supreme 
punishment  of  disobedience.  But  pain  is  in 
that  out  of  which  sin  itself  arises.  For  dis- 
obedience is  only  the  child's  unintelligent 
attempt  to  snatch  forbidden  pleasure,  or  to 
run  away  from  pain.  And  death  was  here 
before  man  came.  We  may  even  reverently 
say  that  God  himself  could  not  prevent 
sorrow,  as  we  say  that  God  cannot  make  a 
triangle  without  three  sides.  I  go  further 
than  this.  I  pity  the  angels  in  heaven  if 
they  have  no  sorrow.  This  would  be  to 
have  no  sympathy.  To  be  conscious  that 
others  grieve  and  not  to  grieve  with  them 
would  be  not  to  love.  I  believe  that  the 
life  of  God  is  not  less,  but  more,  for  having 
as  one  of  its  constituent  elements  what  our 


200     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

lives  have,  namely,  this  universal  element 
of  sorrow.  To  take  this  away  from  the 
divine  life  is  to  put  a  limit  upon  it,  and  to 
make  it  less  than  humanity.  Who  could 
love  an  impassive  God? 

I  go  further  than  this.  If  I  had  my  life 
to  live  over  again,  and  if  I  were  given  the 
choice  to  accept  it  from  infancy  to  old  age, 
without  a  disappointment,  the  shadow  of  a 
loss,  a  hurt,  or  a  pain,  I  should  not  dare  to 
take  life  on  such  terms  ;  I  should  say  rather, 
"  Give  me  such  life  as  this  universe  offers, 
with  its  strange  vicissitudes,  with  its  summer 
and  winter,  its  shadows  and  sunshine,  its 
bitter  sweet  of  sorrow  mingled  in  its  cup." 
If  the  raising  of  my  hand  would  save  those 
whom  I  love  most  from  all  pain  throughout 
eternity  I  should  not  dare  to  raise  my  hand. 
What  is  universal,  what  comes  thus  to  all, 
I  believe  is  not  evil,  but  good. 

This  is  very  different  from  saying  that 
pain  or  disease  or  death  does  not  exist.  If 
pain  did  not  exist  there  would  be  no  call 
for  sympathy,  human  or  divine.  It  does 


MEMENTO   MORI.  201 

exist,  and  therefore  sorrow  is  in  the  world, 
and  therefore  love  goes  on  its  tireless  quests. 

I  do  not  deny  the  instinct  in  us  which 
prays,  Deliver  us  from  evil.  We  can  imag- 
ine the  wood  in  the  hands  of  the  carver, 
or  the  ore  in  the  smelter's  furnace.  If  the 
ore  could  be  conscious,  and  yet  not  quite 
prescient  of  the  finished  work,  it  would 
shrink  from  the  smelter's  fire.  So  we,  being 
conscious,  but  not  quite  prescient,  shrink 
from  the  blows  and  the  fires  of  life.  It  is  as 
if  we  were  climbing  from  below :  pain  and 
sorrow  urge  us  from  behind  that  we  may 
escape  them;  joy,  peace,  and  love  are  the 
prizes  above  us  toward  which  we  are  urged. 

We  say  that  toil  and  work  are  good,  but 
we  are  always  striving  to  economize  labor 
and  minimize  toil.  The  labor  of  the  future 
is  in  finding  out  and  turning  on  the  forces 
of  the  universe  to  do  our  work.  Pain  and 
sorrow  likewise  are  moral  or  spiritual  labor. 
The  divine  pressure  upon  and  within  us  is 
to  economize  and  minimize  this  kind  of  labor, 
to  reduce  the  friction  that  selfishness  makes 


202     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

against  the  free  movement  of  love.  The 
work  of  civilization  comes  to  be  in  finding 
out  and  turning  on  the  inexhaustible  re- 
sources of  love. 

My  meaning  will  be  plainer  when  we  ask 
what  constitutes  real  and  full  life.  As 
Longfellow  says, 

"  Not  enjoyment  and  not  sorrow, 
Is  our  destined  end  and  way." 

One  must  still  be  very  young  not  to  have 
perceived  that  things,  prizes,  money,  praise, 
pleasures,  rank,  and  office  do  not  satisfy 
any  one.  We  have  already  nearly  got  over 
the  wonder  why  it  was  that  the  good  were 
allowed  to  fail,  to  suffer,  and  to  die.  Life 
is  not  measured  by  what  men  call  success  or 
misfortune.  Life  is  not  primarily  in  get- 
ting ;  it  is  in  expressing  or  uttering  itself ;  it 
is  in  the  exercise  of  every  kind  of  power  that 
characterizes  manhood.  To  express  and  show 
forth  physical  power  and  perform  the  natural 
functions  of  the  bodily  life  is  the  delight  of 
the  body.  The  best  workman  many  a  time 
would  rather  work  than  eat.  To  express 


MEMENTO   MORI.  203 

thought,  intellect,  the  sense  of  beauty,  and 
order  —  this  too  is  the  normal  delight  of 
the  mind.  To  express  the  divinest  of  all 
power  —  love  or  good  will  —  to  set  it  forth 
and  do  its  work,  is  the  delight  of  the  com- 
plete man.  To  use  body  and  mind,  with 
all  the  powers  working  together  for  love's 
sake,  for  friendship,  for  patriotism,  for 
humanity,  —  this  is  the  essence  of  what  we 
call  by  the  highest  term,  Life  Eternal.  For 
this  is  the  quality  of  the  life  of  God. 

What  is  the  delight  of  the  great  engineers, 
the  men,  for  example,  who  carried  the 
Canadian  Pacific  railroad  across  the  Rocky 
mountains?  Is  it  in  being  paid  or  ap- 
plauded ?  I  hope  not.  They  would  choose 
to  have  done  their  work  if  they  barely  got 
their  living  out  of  it,  or  even  if  the  praise 
went  to  the  wrong  persons.  Was  their  de- 
light in  merely  cutting  through  loose  gravel 
or  pushing  their  way  over  easy  levels  ?  No ! 
The  great  engineers'  joy  is  in  overcoming 
obstacles,  in  solving  hard  problems,  in  ex- 
pressing all  the  power,  courage,  intelligence, 


204     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

genius,  that  they  possess,  in  a  splendid  piece 
of  human  service.  Show  them  steep  cliffs, 
deep  canons,  roaring  mountain  torrents, 
quicksands,  and  bogs.  Their  delight  is  in 
turning  every  kind  of  material  to  their  mas- 
ter purpose.  So  the  divine  life  power  in 
man  takes  every  material  of  experience  — 
difficulties,  losses,  opposition,  pain,  as  well 
as  successes,  praise,  favor,  and  joy — and 
weaves  all  into  the  beautiful  harmony. 
Through  all  things  love  expresses  itself; 
through  nothing  does  it  express  itself  with 
such  overwhelming  persuasion  as  when  it 
reveals  itself  triumphing  over  pain  or  un- 
daunted in  the  face  of  death. 

See  if  this  is  not  so.  Take  the  simple 
cases  of  hunger  and  thirst,  weariness  and 
exposure,  hurts  and  pains.  I  am  not  sorry 
that  I  have  had  to  bear  bodily  discomfort. 
I  know  better  what  health  is  than  if  I  had 
never  been  uncomfortable.  There  is  a  law 
in  the  body  by  which  pressure  calls  out 
elasticity.  After  pain  ceases  the  thrill  of 
ecstasy  often  follows.  Life  thus  rousing 


MEMENTO  MORI.  205 

itself  to  drive  out  disease,  leaves  a  surplus 
behind. 

Take  the  case  of  sorrow,  either  for  one's 
own  transgression  or,  more  ennobling,  for 
the  wrong-doing  of  others.  I  pity  the  life 
that  has  not  had  this  element  of  penitence 
in  it.  Have  you  never  had  sorrow  for  sin? 
Then  you  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness.  Has  your 
heart  never  ached  at  the  cruelty,  greed,  op- 
pression, and  selfishness  of  the  world,  at  the 
tragedy  of  "  man's  inhumanity  to  man  "  ? 
Then  you  do  not  know  yet  what  it  is  to 
keep  company  with  the  heroes.  Pray  God 
to  smite  you,  before  the  sun  goes  down,  with 
divine  sorrow,  pity,  and  shame. 

You  think  it  hard  to  suffer  injustice,  not 
to  be  paid  for  your  work,  not  to  have  a  fair 
measure  of  praise,  not  to  win  success,  while 
others  less  deserving  take  the  prizes.  I  will 
tell  you  what  the  real  hardship  is.  It  is  to 
be  rewarded  overmuch,  to  get  success  that 
rightly  belongs  to  others,  to  receive  praise 
and  thanks  which  one  does  not  deserve.  I 


206     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

say  deliberately  that  I  am  glad  that  I  have 
been  often  disappointed,  and  have  even 
suffered  misunderstanding  and  apparent  in- 
justice. Such  suffering  has  never  done  me 
the  slightest  harm.  I  am  glad  to  cherish 
visions  and  dreams  of  possible  attainment, 
for  which  this  life  will  hardly  be  long 
enough.  I  see  noble  tasks  which  I  am  un- 
likely ever  to  be  allowed  even  to  undertake. 
Disappointments  will  mark  my  way  till  the 
day  of  my  death.  God  forbid  that  I  brood 
over  them  for  one  wasteful  moment !  They 
•  are  the  price  that  I  pay  for  ideals  which  are 
better  than  life.  Bearing  disappointments, 
I  am  bearing  the  common  lot  of  all  God's 
children.  Not  the  meanest,  but  the  noblest 
have  taken  their  share  in  this  species  of 
spiritual  labor.  Was  it  not  said  of  the  great 
William  of  Orange  that  he  was  beaten  in 
every  battle,  and  his  life  to  the  last  fatal 
bullet  was  a  series  of  disappointments  ?  But 
he  won  liberty  in  Holland,  nevertheless. 
And,  as  the  familiar  hymn  says, 


MEMENTO   MORI.  207 

"  Jesus  won  the  world  through  shame, 
And  beckons  thee  his  road." 

Take,  again,  the  perennial  miracle  where- 
by bereavement  and  death  become  trans- 
formed into  higher  forms  of  life.  I  mean 
life  here  and  now,  with  immortality  still 
undrawn  upon.  A  little  book  called  "A 
Boy's  Life  "  illustrates  this.  In  this  book  a 
father  tells  the  short  simple  story  of  a  young 
life.  It  is  a  completely  healthy  life,  despite 
growing  invalidism;  it  is  bright,  cheerful, 
happy,  brave,  manly,  with  all  a  natural  boy's 
instincts  and  interests.  It  is  cut  off  at  the 
very  flowering  time  of  promise  and  hope.  It 
goes  forth  as  it  had  gone  on,  without  fear, 
dutiful  and  courageous  to  the  end.  Must 
this  early  death  be  called  failure  or  defeat  ? 
The  father  says  "  No."  He  assures  us  that 
every  one  in  the  little  circle  of  his  boy's 
friends  is  better  forever  for  this  brief  life. 
The  sorrow  is  thus  already  transmuted  into 
faith,  hope,  and  love.  This  is  no  uncommon 
story.  It  is  illustrative  of  a  great  class  of 
facts. 


208     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Some  one  may  say,  How  about  the  griefs, 
disappointments,  pain,  and  losses  that 
end  in  bitterness,  suspicion,  and  selfishness  ? 
I  hold  that  water  is  good,  though  on  occa- 
sion it  may  drown  men.  I  hold  that  fire  is 
good,  though  it  may  burn  our  flesh.  I  can- 
not call  sorrow  a  disaster,  because  men  have 
not  yet  learned  to  handle  or  understand  it. 
I  see  a  hundred  children  at  their  drawing- 
lesson.  If  five  or  ten  have  caught  the  idea 
and  made  the  picture  it  does  not  trouble  me 
that  the  work  of  all  the  rest  must  be  rubbed 
out.  If  only  one  pupil  has  perceived  the  law 
of  the  work  this  is  the  earnest  that  in  due 
time  all  will  learn  the  lesson,  and  the  good 
and  not  the  bad  drawing  will  prevail.  So 
men's  failures  to  understand  and  obey  the 
law  of  sorrow  only  prove  that  they  are  as 
yet  children,  and  not  grown  men. 

Turn  now  to  one  of  the  masters  and  see 
what  he  made  of  sorrow.  Pick  out  the  week 
of  Jesus'  life  which  men  have  called  "  Pas- 
sion Week,"  marking  it  as  typical  of  the 
direst  human  trouble.  I  suspect  that  they 


MEMENTO   MORI.  209 

have  altogether  mistaken  the  meaning  of 
the  story.  The  week  brought  sorrow,  but 
it  also  brought  the  keenest  joy.  Here  was 
a  man  who  was  living  for  a  few  days  on 
the  heights  of  life.  Heart  and  soul  and 
mind  and  strength  were  occupied.  All  that 
was  in  him  of  power,  intellect,  goodness, 
rushed  on  to  express  itself  and  pour  itself  out. 
This  was  the  week  in  which  the  story  was, 
that  the  joyous  city  came  out  of  its  gates  to 
welcome  the  prophet  of  the  new  age.  This 
was  the  week  in  which  he  taught  with  au- 
thority in  the  open  temple.  After  busy 
days,  full  of  the  conscious  kingship  of  truth, 
he  returned  each  evening,  surrounded  by 
friends,  to  the  loving,  restful  home  in  Beth- 
any. True,  he  wept  over  Jerusalem,  but  he 
wept  as  one  who  saw  the  vision  of  the  truths 
that  always  build  new  cities.  True,  he 
went  down  into  the  depths  in  the  garden  of 
Gethsemane,  as  weary  men,  both  before  and 
after  victory,  are  fated  often  to  suffer  un- 
speakable loneliness,  but  the  legend  tells  an 
eternal  truth,  that  after  the  sorrow  "  angels 


210     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

came  and  ministered  to  him."  True,  he 
hung  upon  the  cross  bitter  hours,  but  when  all 
was  finished,  his  soul,  and  not  pain,  was  the 
victor.  Presently  a  new  tide  of  humanity, 
more  hopeful,  enthusiastic,  and  brotherly 
than  men  had  known,  was  sweeping  over 
the  world.  By  and  by  great  singers  would 
turn  the  events  of  this  week  into  the  most 
noble  music. 

Do  you  pity  Jesus  for  this  glorious  week  ? 
I  do  not  conceive  that  he  would  have  ac- 
cepted your  pity.  What  man  in  whose 
veins  the  flow  of  life,  power,  love,  has 
tingled  ever  wanted  pity  of  his  fellows? 
Do  not  call  this  "  Passion  Week ;  "  call  it  a 
gleam  and  manifestation  of  eternal  life.  It 
was  such  life  as  Luther  lived  at  the  Diet  of 
Worms,  as  Wolfe  lived  at  Quebec,  as  Charles 
Sumner  lived  striving  for  freedom  in  the 
Senate  Chamber,  as  Lincoln  lived  at  the 
height  of  his  power,  weighted  with  burdens, 
victorious  and  fortunate  even  in  the  hour  of 
his  death. 

We  see  now  what  kind  of  life  constitutes 


MEMENTO   MORI.  211 

tragedy.  Not  Jesus'  life,  but  Herod's  was 
tragedy.  For  Herod  had  power,  high  sta- 
tion, wealth,  great  duties,  and  he  turned  all 
to  waste,  growing  base  and  sensual  with 
every  new  honor  or  title.  The  story  of 
Pilate  is  tragedy.  With  the  power  of  Rome 
to  uphold  him  in  doing  justice,  he  became  a 
cowardly  and  feeble  accomplice  in  malice 
and  murder.  The  story  of  Judas  is  tragedy. 
He  had  known  the  best  man  in  the  world, 
and  he  had  learned  nothing  from  him;  he 
did  not  even  know  how  to  repent !  To  pos- 
sess and  enjoy  riches,  talents,  office,  educa- 
tion, influence,  friendship,  and  then  to  stoop 
to  do  mean,  brutal,  or  cruel  things,  —  this  is 
tragedy.  To  bear  hardship,  to  endure  suf 
fering,  to  encounter  injustice,  to  face  dis- 
appointment, to  grow  more  generous,  noble, 
resolute,  to  rise  with  every  new  load  of  care 
or  duty,  to  turn  each  stroke  of  pain  into  a 
wiser  love,  to  stand  up  like  a  king  to  meet 
death  and  "  greet  the  unseen  with  a  cheer," 
—  this  is  the  demonstration  of  the  living 
God. 


212     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

"Speak,  history!  who  are  life's  victors?  Unroll  thy 
long  annals  and  say, 

Are  they  those  whom  the  world  called  the  victors  —  who 
won  the  success  of  a  day? 

The  martyrs,  or  Nero?  The  Spartans,  who  fell  at  Ther- 
mopylae's tryst, 

Or  the  Persians  and  Xerxes?  His  judges,  or  Socrates? 
Pilate,  or  Christ?" 

My  aim  is  to  take  away  fear.  If  this  is 
God's  world  there  is  no  need  of  fear  or 
anxiety.  Treat  it  as  God's  world  and  two 
wonderful  facts  become  evident.  First, 
there  is  nothing  which  ever  befalls  you  or 
those  whom  you  love  which  may  not  be 
so  handled  as  to  translate  it  into  beauty  and 
good.  Human  experiences  of  every  sort 
become  so  much  material  out  of  which  to 
create  goodness,  love,  and  life.  This  is  the 
law.  In  spite  of  seeming  exceptions,  I  speak 
with  assurance  in  saying  that  I  never  knew 
it  to  fail.  They  tell  us  that  there  is  no  feat 
of  the  engineer's  art  needful  for  man  that  is 
not  possible.  Is  it  desirable  to  lift  loaded 
ships  from  sea  to  sea,  or  blast  a  channel  for 
them  to  sail  through  the  midst  of  the  hills  ? 


MEMENTO  MORI.  213 

Whatever  needful  thing  humanity  prays  to 
have  done,  science,  genius,  and  hidden 
powers  of  nature  stand  ready  to  effect.  So 
of  the  problems  of  the  soul  of  man.  It  has 
already  been  demonstrated  that  whatever 
needs  to  be  overcome  in  the  name  of  love 
can  be  not  only  overcome,  but  turned  also 
into  moral  and  spiritual  advantage.  What- 
ever befalls,  the  law  is  that,  following  the 
voice  of  love,  you  shall  thereby  grow  to  the 
stature  of  a  fuller  manhood.  Try  it  and  see. 
Lastly,  the  true  note  of  life  is  not  sorrow 
or  sacrifice.  Pain,  losses,  disappointments 
are  only  the  incidents  of  life.  They  may 
be  more  or  less.  Life  is  blended  of  many 
notes  and  voices  ;  joys  and  sorrows,  toil  and 
rest,  alternate.  The  keynote  of  life  rises  out 
of  the  whole.  It  is  no  wail  of  grief ;  it  is 
no  bitter  cry  ;  it  is  nothing  to  fear.  Believe 
me,  it  is  musical,  sweet,  beautiful,  a  clarion 
call.  It  is  a  psean  of  victory  ;  it  tells  a  love 
story,  and  is  joy.  It  is  the  witness  and  the 
present  proof  of  immortality.  For  we  are 
admitted  here  in  this  world  into  the  enjoy- 


214     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

ment  of  a  quality  of  life  which  is  surely 
divine ;  it  is  above  the  range  of  material 
change,  accident  or  death.  As  Emerson 
teaches,  all  that  we  know  fills  us  with  con- 
fidence for  what  is  beyond  our  sight.  As 
Jowett,  the  great  scholar  of  Baliol,  loved  to 
quote  year  by  year  in  his  old  age  :  "  The 
best  is  yet  to  be."  As  Robert  Browning 
saw  and  sang : 

"  There  shall  never  be  one  lost  good  !     What  was  shall 

live  as  before ; 

The  evil  is  null,  is  naught,  is  silence  implying  sound ; 
What  was  good  shall  be  good,  with,  for  evil,  so  much 

good  more ; 
On  the  earth,  the  broken  arcs ;  in  the  heaven  a  perfect 

round." 


OUR   RULE   OF  LIFE.  215 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

OUR    RULE   OF    LIFE. 

WE  hate  no  one ;  we  envy  no  one ;  we 
disallow  in  ourselves  jealousy,  bitterness,  or 
wrath  ;  we  put  away  indignation.  Who  are 
we  that  we  dare  to  be  harsh  or  severe  to  our 
fellows  ?  We  propose  to  bear  with  men  as 
we  wish  them  to  bear  with  us.  As  we  love 
clean  hands  and  unspotted  clothing,  so  we 
love  clean  thoughts  and  unspotted  honor. 
We  cannot  abide  meanness,  revenge,  false- 
hood, impurity.  We  pity  those  who  are 
ignorant,  weak  in  will,  or  bound  by  animal 
passions,  who  suffer  the  rule  of  vice  and 
selfishness.  We  never  despise  any  man,  as 
we  would  not  despise  the  blind  or  the  sick. 
The  worse  men  are,  the  more  childish,  bar- 
barous, or  degraded  their  conditions  are,  the 
more  we  owe  them  our  help  and  our  sym- 
pathy. 


216     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

Whenever  friendliness  goes  out  of  us  we 
know  that  the  light  of  our  life  has  gone  out ; 
when  we  hate  or  scorn  any  one  we  become 
in  that  moment  outcasts  from  love,  like  those 
whom  we  hate.  We  harbor  no  grievances  in 
our  hearts  ;  we  complain  at  nothing  ;  we  as- 
sume that  "  offenses  must  come,"  that  mis- 
understanding, disappointment,  and  injustice 
in  some  measure  must  be  met  with  and  borne 
in  every  man's  life.  We  are  not  merce- 
naries to  bargain  in  advance  whether  the 
day's  work  shall  be  more  or  less.  We  pur- 
pose to  live  as  free  men,  not  as  slaves.  If 
we  are  workmen  and  servants  we  are  also 
cooperators,  sharers-,  heirs,  and  sons  of  God. 
We  had  rather  suffer  injustice  than  commit 
it.  We  had  rather  be  underpaid,  under- 
praised,  underrated  than  to  be  paid,  or 
praised,  or  estimated  for  more  than  we  and 
our  work  are  honestly  worth.  We  desire 
nothing  —  comfort  or  money  or  honors  — 
that  must  come  at  other  men's  expense  or 
pain  or  loss. 

We  will   not   harbor   conceit,   vanity,  or 


OUR   RULE   OF  LIFE.  217 

pride,  as  if  we  were  better  than  others,  of 
finer  clay,  or  dearer  to  God ;  as  if  we  had 
won  by  ourselves  the  priceless  heritage  of 
wisdom  or  goodness.  We  remember  that  all 
things  which  we  possess  have  been  given  to 
us,  and  that  from  those  to  whom  much  is 
given  much  should  be  required. 

We  are  glad  whenever  we  see  power,  skill, 
beauty,  genius,  faith,  humanity,  good  will. 
We  are  glad  if  these  divine  traits  are  in  our- 
selves ;  we  are  glad  to  see  them  in  other 
men ;  we  are  glad  if  we  find  them  in  those 
who  had  seemed  base,  selfish,  and  evil. 

We  desire  always  to  look  truth  in  the 
face,  to  follow  her  call,  not  to  shrink  from 
her  just  rebuke.  We  are  pledged,  whether 
conscience  whispers  or  thunders,  whether 
multitudes  go  with  us  or  not,  equally  to 
obey.  There  is  no  shining  height  so  great 
whither  for  duty's  sake  we  would  not  wish 
to  climb;  no  depth  so  forbidding  whither 
for  mercy's  sake  we  would  not  seek  to  pene- 
trate. 

Whether  appreciated  or  not,  we  will  yet 


218     THE  RELIGION  OF  A    GENTLEMAN. 

try  to  be  gracious ;  we  are  here  not  to  get, 
but  to  give,  to  achieve,  to  accomplish,  to 
pour  life  out,  and  make  love  grow,  to  help, 
to  save,  to  uplift.  We  delight  in  all  good 
work  done,  whoever  does  it. 

We  will  stand  by  and  strengthen  the 
hands  of  the  leaders  and  helpers  in  truth,  in 
science,  in  reform,  in  religion,  for  our  city, 
for  our  country,  for  humanity,  as  we  would 
wish,  if  we  were  leaders,  that  men  might 
stand  by  us.  If  ever  our  turn  is  to  lead  we 
will  be  faithful  and  modest;  we  will  ask 
nothing  for  ourselves,  remembering  that  he 
who  leads  best  must  always  be  the  servant 
of  all. 

Our  aim  is  to  do  true  men's  work  in  the 
world ;  like  a  good  tree  to  bear  some  fruit ; 
to  leave  the  world  after  our  stay  in  it  better 
off,  and  not  poorer ;  to  pay  our  way  as  we  go ; 
if  we  make  mistakes  to  atone  for  them 
promptly ;  if  we  have  faults  to  try  to  correct 
them ;  to  turn  pain,  sorrow,  and  losses  into 
larger  sympathy,  friendliness,  and  faith  in 
God ;  to  grow  in  gentleness,  consideration, 


OUR   RULE   OF  LIFE.  219 

and  thoughtfulness ;  to  keep  our  eyes  on  the 
past  only  so  far  as  to  learn  its  lessons  ;  to 
forebode  nothing,  to  apprehend  nothing,  to 
give  fear  no  tenantry  in  our  thoughts; 
to  keep  our  eyes  on  the  future  and  ever 
toward  the  light,  while  we  do  the  nearest 
present  duty ;  to  march  on  in  all  weathers,  by 
night,  if  it  must  be,  as  well  as  by  day,  with 
love  warm  in  our  hearts,  and  hope  in  our 
eyes,  as  the  sons  of  God,  immortals,  having 
won  here  and  now  some  foregleam  of  the 
wisdom,  the  truth,  the  justice,  and  the  death- 
less good  will  which  constitute  Eternal  Life. 
"  Finally,  whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure, 
whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever 
things  are  of  good  report;  if  there  be  any 
virtue,  and  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on 
these  things." 


A    000  001  655     o 


